204 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



saries, lias always been a matter of surprise. They pass on without 

 an instant's sleep, however long and fatiguing the route. How 

 can the Quail, for instance, with its short wing and plump body, 

 traverse the Mediterranean twice in the year ? Hasselquist tells 

 us that small short- winged birds frequently came on board his 

 ship in squally weather, all the way from the Channel to the 

 Levant ; and Prince Charles Bonaparte was agreeably surprised 

 by the visit of a party of Swallows to the ship Delaware, in which 

 he was a passenger, when five hundred miles from the coast 

 of Portugal, and four hundred from Africa. Audubon relates 

 a similar occurrence ; and numerous instances are recorded in 

 which these fatigued travellers have taken shelter in the first 

 fisherman's boat they met, sometimes so weak as to be hardly 

 able to move a wing. It is therefore a fact truly inexplicable, 

 in spite of every hypothesis, more or less reasonable, which has 

 been advanced by naturalists in explanation. 



Men have little influence over birds, and have, therefore, few 

 opportunities of studying their habits in a state of nature. Some 

 few species may be retained in captivity, and some observers 

 have been able to obtain their entire confidence while in that 

 condition ; but, except two or three species, it has not been pos- 

 sible to reduce them to a state of domestication. Our knowledge 

 of the habits and manners of the feathered race is, therefore, 

 entirely dependent on chance observation. 



The Humming-bird is confined to certain portions of America. 

 The Nightingale, if a visitor to Scotland, is only found in Ber- 

 wick and Dumfriesshire in fine seasons, while it is constantly 

 seen in Sweden, a country much colder and much more northerly. 

 The Toucans, so brilliant in plumage, are only found in tropical 

 South America. The Swallow, so rapid on the wing, clearing 

 its twenty leagues an hour when it leaves us for its southern 

 winter quarters, never deviates from the route which seems to 

 have been traced for it by a Sovereign Master. 



It may, then, be stated that the great zones of the earth differ 

 as much in birds as in the Mammifers found in them. We 

 find in climatic regions birds, or groups of birds, of per- 

 fectly distinct species, and which are rarely found beyond that 

 particular zone. Glancing at the various countries forming a 



