9448 Birds. 



by golden plovers. This day I saw large flocks of these birds, feeding 

 on the wheat lands in the marsh, one flock alone containing several 

 hundred birds. I have invariably observed that some days before the 

 breaking out of severe weather immense flights of golden plovers, 

 coming from the North, arrive in tlie marshes bordering the Huraber, 

 and on the first severe night's frost they leave us again. The pee- 

 wits are even more sensitive to the coming change, for the greater 

 portion will depart before the arrival of their golden brethren. Here 

 it is considered a sure sign of severe winter when large flocks of field- 

 fares, redwings and plovers arrive in the marshes. This rule, how- 

 ever, does not hold good in all cases, for I have known equally large 

 flights of peewits in the low grounds during the whole of a mild and 

 open season. Mr. Morris, in a letter lately addressed to the ' Times,' 

 remarks on the almost total absence, this year, of the wild geese which 

 are seen during the autumn in Yorkshire. The same has been the 

 case in this county : as yet I have only seen one small flock of geese. 

 In a second letter to the ' Times ' Mr. Morris quotes extracts from the 

 letters of correspondents in various parts of the country, from which 

 it appears that wild geese have been observed in large numbers on 

 the western side of the country. It would be difficult to determine to 

 what cause we are to attribute this remarkable decrease in the wild 

 geese on the eastern shores of England, and the corresponding large 

 increase in the redwings, plovers, &c. If the arrival of some species, 

 — as the little snow bunting and golden plover, — in such unusual num- 

 bers, is an indication of the immediate approach of severe weather, 

 this cause will not account for the presence of such large flocks of 

 the northern Merulidae in the neighbourhood weeks before the com- 

 mencement of severe weather, and, up to a few days since, a remark- 

 ably mild and open season. As yet we know little of the cause 

 which induces some species of birds to frequent a favourite locality, 

 at certain seasons, for some years, and then, without any apparent 

 cause, to, disappear. Are the movements of these large flocks of 

 birds caused by any increase or decrease in their favourite food, or 

 from an unerring instinct which warns them a severe season is ap- 

 proaching ? This do we know, however, that 



" There is a Power whose care 



Teaches their way along that pathless coast,— 

 The desert and illimitable air, — 

 Loue wandering, but not lost." 



I am inclined to think that these apparently eccentric movements 



