3oi' HISTOUY OF 



ot this island. They visit us in the beginning of winter, and 

 forsake us in the spring. They then retire to the mountains of 

 Sweden, Poland, Prussia, and Lapland, to breed. Our coun- 

 try, during the summer season, becomes uninhabitable to them. 

 The ground parched up by the heat ; the springs dried away ; 

 and the vermicular insects already upon the wing ; they have no 

 means of subsisting. Their weak and delicately pointed bills 

 are unfit to dig into a resisting soil ; and their prey is depart- 

 ed, though they were able to reach its retreats. Thus, that 

 season when nature is said to teem with life, and to put on her 

 gayest liveries, is to them an interval of sterility and famine. 

 The coldest mountains of the north are then a preferable habita- 

 tion ; the marshes there are never totally dried up ; and the in- 

 sects are in such abundance, that both above ground and under- 

 neath, the country swarms with them. In such retreats, there- 

 fore, these birds would continue always; but that the frosts, 

 when they set in, have the same effect upon the face of the land- 

 scape, as the heats of summer. Every brook is stiffened into 

 ice ; all the earth is congealed into one solid mass ; and the birds 

 are obliged to forsake a region where they can no longer find 

 subsistence. 



Such are our visitants. With regard to those which keep 

 with us continually, and breed here, they are neither so delicate 

 :a their food, nor perhaps so warm in their constitutions. The 

 lapwing, the ruff, the redshank, the sandpiper, the sea-pie, the 

 Norfolk plover, and the sea-lark, breed in this country, and for 

 the most part reside here. In summer they frequent such 

 marshes as are not dried up in any part of the year ; the Essex 

 hundreds, and the fens of Lincolnshire. There, in solitudes 

 formed by surrounding marshes, they breed and bring up their 

 young. In winter they come down from their retreats rendered 

 uninhabitable by the flooding of the waters, and seek their food 

 about our ditches and marshy meadow-grounds. Yet, even of 

 this class, all are wanderers upon some occasions ; and take wing 

 to the northern climates, to breed and find subsistence. This hap- 

 pens when our summers are peculiarly dry ; and when the fenny 

 countries are not sufficiently watered to defend their retreats. 



But though this be the usual course of nature, with respect to 

 these birds, they often break th)-ough the general habits of theit 

 kind ; and as the lapwing, the ruff, and the sandpiper, are some- 



