AVES. 411 



after incubation, leave us in autumn ; and another host, chiefly palmipedes, 

 from the arctic regions, arriv^e in autumn, pass the winter on our lakes and 

 shores, and depart again in spring. Each species has a particular mode 

 of flight, in these annual journeys, and a certain period of arrival and 

 departure. Assembled in large flocks, the cranes cleave the air in the form 

 of a long triangle ; wild geese fly in angular lines ; and the smaller birds 

 associate in less numerous families, and reach their destination in less con- 

 tinued flights. One of the most curious particulars connected with the 

 annual migrations of birds, is the circumstance of individuals returning for 

 a series of years to the same nestling places. Spallanzani having tied a 

 thread of red silk round the leg of a swallow, which built its nest in his 

 window, saw for three seasons the same stranger, with its progeny, annually 

 appear. Ekmark remarked a lame starling, which occupied the same nest 

 in the hole of an old alder, for a period of eight years ; and similar instances 

 are on record, concerning many other species of migratory birds. This 

 wonderful direction of instinct, which divides the innumerable flocks of 

 birds in their progress northward, and leads particular families to seek the 

 protection of the same roof, or the same chimney top, which formerly 

 sheltered them, affords a subject not the least worthy of contemplation, 

 among the thousand instances of wisdom and beneficence which arrest the 

 student of nature, at every step of his progress. The flight of birds is very 

 rapid. Birds of prey have been observed to fly at the rate of about twenty 

 leagues in an hour. A falcon belonging to Henry II. of France, escaping 

 from Fontainbleau, was found next day at Malta, a distance of thirteen 

 hundred and fifty miles, and recognized from the ring on its leg. Sir Hans 

 Sloane mentions that, at Barbadoes, the gulls came to feed, and returned 

 two hundred miles the same day. And Mr Audubon relates of the migra- 

 tory pigeons of America, that they have been killed in the neighborhood 

 of New York with rice in their crops, collected in the fields of Georgia and 

 Carolina, the nearest points at which this supply could have been obtained. 

 Eeasoning from the fact, that the food of pigeons is entirely digested in 

 twelve hours, Mr Audubon concludes that they must have travelled between 

 three and four hundred miles in six hours. Birds in general live long, 

 considering how early they arrive at maturity. Swans are said to live for 

 a hundred years ; and the pelican arrives at a similar age. Carnivorous 

 birds, particularly the eagle, live to a very great age, perhaps beyond a 

 century ; the raven for a still longer period ; and parrots have been known 

 to live from sixty to eighty years. The life of gallinaceous birds, such as 

 the domestic fowl, the pheasant, and the partridge, seldom exceeds twelve 

 or twenty years. 



