ON THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 395 



meriting Gnat. The days there are long; and 

 the beautiful meteorous nights indulge them 

 Avith every opportunity of collecting so minute 

 a food : whilst mankind is very sparingly scat- 

 tered over that vast northern waste. 



Why then should Linnctus, , the great ex- 

 plorer of these rude deserts, be amazed at the 

 myriads of water fowl that migrated with him out 

 of Lapland? which exceeded in multitudes the 

 army of Xer.ves; covering, for eight whole days 

 and nights, the surface of the river CaUi\ * , - 

 His partial observation as a botanist, would 

 confine their food to the vegetable kingdom, al- 

 most denied to the Lapland waters ; inattentive 

 to a more plenteous table of insect food, m hich 

 the all bountiful Creator had spread for them in 

 the wilderness, f . • • ,: ^ 



* Flora Lapponica, 273. Amcen. acad. TV. 570. 



■f It may be remarked, that the lakes of mountanous rocky 

 countries in general are destitute of plants : few or none are seen 

 on those of Switzerland ; and Linnceus makes the same observa- 

 tion in respect to those of Lapland; having, during his whole 

 tour, discovered only a single specimen of a lemna trisulca, or 

 ivy leaved duck's meat, Flora Lap. JHo. 470. a few of the scirpus 

 lacustris, No. 18. or bullrush ; the alopecurus geniculatus. No. 

 38. or flote foxtail grass; and the ranunculus aquatilis, No. 234. 

 which are all he enumerates in his Prolegomena to that excel- 

 lent performance. 



