230 NATURAL li I STORY 



since the matter of food is a great regulator 

 of the actions and proceedings of the brute 

 creation : there is but one that can be set 

 in competition with it, and that is love. 

 But I cannot quite iicquiesce with you in 

 one circumstance, when you advance that, 

 " when they have thus feasted, they again 

 " separate into small parties of five or six, 

 " and get the best fare they can within a 

 " certain district, having no inducement 

 " to go in quest of fresh-turned earth," 

 Now if you mean that the business of con- 

 gregating is quite at an end from the con- 

 clusion of wheat-sowing to the season of 

 barley and oats, it is not the case with us ; 

 for larks and chaffinches, and particularly 

 linnets, flock and congregate as much in the 

 very dead of Winter as when the husband- 

 man is busy with his ploughs and harrows. 

 Sure there can be no doubt but that 

 woodcocks and fieldfares leave us in the 

 Spring, in order to cross the seas, and to 

 retire to some districts more suitable to the 

 ))urpose of breeding. That the former pair 

 bel'orc they retire, and liuit the hens are 



