190 ORALLY. 



none of them, so far as has been observed, summer or winter 

 in exactly the same places. Generally speaking, their mo- 

 tions are northward and upland in the summer, and south- 

 ward and seaward in the winter, but they are regulated by 

 surface as well as by climate ; for though they do not go to 

 the absolute sludge, or the ground which is inundated, they 

 love humid surfaces, and therefore they are on the margins 

 of such localities. 



Of the seven species that have been found in Britain, only 

 one has been ascertained to breed in considerable numbers, 

 though there is little doubt that some of the others do 

 remain and breed in peculiar localities, probably more in 

 number, and also a greater variety in species, than has yet 

 been ascertained by observation. 



Hence their arises a remark which seems not unworthy of 

 being recorded, and not the less so that its application is far 

 more extensive than to any one genus of birds, or even to 

 the whole of the feathered race. The man who knows and 

 writes (for the writing ought never, at all events, to precede 

 the knowledge), always knows less than there is to be 

 known ; and the man who writes without observation, 

 always knows more takes more credit, in short ; but still, 

 as is the case with all who live on credit, whatever appear- 

 ance he may make, he, in reality, lives a beggar. One 

 finds melancholy proofs of this in the books on natural 

 history. In many instances this is difficult to be avoided, 

 and none more so than in the genus tringa, which com- 

 prises birds which, as British, are so rarely seen, even in 

 museums. 



THE PURRE, OR DUNLIN (Tringa variabilis). 



The remarkable difference between the summer and winter 

 plumage of this bird, on account of which it well merits the 



