286 INSECTI VOILE. 



whole country in that snowy covering which is to remain till 

 summer, there is food for them there. 



These circumstances of the native regions (for the native 

 place of migratory birds is, of course, that in which they are 

 hatched) give them some peculiarities which are not observ- 

 able in birds that come from, or gradually pass through, 

 countries in which the changes of season are less abrupt. 



In consequence of the abundance of food during the short 

 but very active season, when the whole or nearly the whole 

 twenty-four hours are daylight, the field-fares are very nume- 

 rous, and build near to each other ; and as the proportion, 

 making allowance for the casualties of the breeding time, is 

 nearly tripling the numbers, they swarm very thick by the 

 end of the season. They begin to move in September or 

 October, according as the cold weather sets in ; and, as that 

 is earlier if the summer has been wet, they sometimes, 

 though very rarely, reach the north-eastern part of Scotland 

 by the first of October, but they are, in general, later ; and, 

 according to the state of the weather, they come occasionally 

 all the winter. They seem, indeed, to take short stages on 

 the continent, and move southward as the storm drives them, 

 often in incredible numbers, and subjected to the greatest 

 hardships ; and if those dreadful storms are from the north- 

 east, they are drifted to our shores, often in an exhausted 

 and famishing condition when they land, and subjected to 

 still greater peril if it continues. 



In the winter of 1798 (I forget the day, but shall never 

 forget the weather), there was one of the most dreadful snow 

 storms that ever visited the British isles. It was the har- 

 binger of those years of oppressive severity with which the 

 close of the eighteenth century was marked. I cannot say 

 that I was out on the fearful Friday, when the north-east 

 was flinging mountains of snow on the forests, but I was so 

 placed that I could hear the crash of the rending trees, and 



