MIGRATION AND FLIGHT. 105 



appearance on the Irtisch, in Tobolsk, soon after the 

 Russians had ploughed the land. It came, in 1 735, 

 up the Obi to Beresow, and four years afterwards 

 to Naryn, about fifteen degrees of longitude further 

 east. In 1J10, it had been seen in the higher parts 

 of the course of the Lena, in the government of 

 Irkutzk. In all these places it is now common, 

 but is not yet found in the uncultivated regions of 

 Kamtschatka*. From certain entries in the Hun- 

 stanton Household Book from 1519 to 1578, dn 

 which Sparrows (or, as they are there written, 

 Spowes, or Sparrouse) are frequently recorded, it 

 would appear that these birds took their place in the 

 larders of the nobility as delicacies with other game, 

 from which we may infer that they were at that time 

 as rare in Norfolk as they still are in some parts of 

 Russia, owing, probably, to the same cause, viz., 

 the limited state of tillage and growth of corn t. 



The Rice-Buntings, natives of Cuba, after the 

 planting of rice in the Carolinas, annually quit the 

 island in myriads, and, flying over wide seas, land, 

 to partake of a harvest introduced there from dis- 

 tant India. It is, however, only the female Rice- 

 bird that migrates; for of the numbers visiting 

 Carolina, it is said not a single male is ever found. 



The foregoing instances, while they assure us (if 

 assurance was necessary) that birds, at wonted times, 

 change their habitations, still add to, rather than 

 remove, the difficulties as to the real causes. But 

 if of these we must for the present remain in 



* Lyeirs GeoL, iii. 22. 



j- See Household and Privy-purse Accounts of the L'Es- 

 tranges of Hunstanton, communicated to the Society of Anti- 

 quaries by Daniel Gurney, Esq., F.S.A. 



