80 = HIRUNDO EUSTICA. 



before his age, and construed the facts which birds tell us as plainly as if 

 they spoke. Perhaps, also, he had a talking one or two, as the mediaeval 

 witch kept her cat. 



Brighton is situated on a bird-road (a person must be blind not to see 

 that) ; and I was on the point of putting down a few observations on bird- 

 roads when the third volume of the new ' Encyclopsedia Britannica ' arrived, 

 containing the twin articles " on Birds '' which the two Professors have, to 

 our profit, put forth. Here I found the subject treated at length, to my 

 great satisfaction ; and what I had arrived at, after years of patient obser- 

 vation, I discovered to be already known to Herr Palmen (' Om Foglarnes 

 flyttnings-vagar/ Helsingfors, 1874). It is useless to repeat the account of 

 his nine roads ; it is to be found in the above w^ork. 



Not being an admirer of modern prophets, I am reluctant to become 

 one myself; still it is hardly rash to predict that not only will maps of 

 bird-roads be published, but also, with most important results, offish-roads. 



No doubt fish have their regular highways in the ocean, just as we 

 have the Great Northern Railway now, or used the Great North Road 

 formerly, or as the Romans possessed their Ermin Street and Watling Street, 

 which ran in the same direction. 



What is the Gulf-stream ?— a thing one is almost ashamed to name in 

 this day. Not long ago this wonderful stream did every thing ; now it is 

 quite out of scientific fashion (for science has its fashions, and superstitions 

 also). The Gulf-stream is a sea-road ; the trade-winds are air-roads. 



Migration, then, is not only a name, but a principle that mingles in every 

 kind of life. Not to instance vertebrates and insects, seeds migrate ; the 

 farmer sees the thistle-seed doing so, high in air, to his detriment. 



But how do birds find their w^ay for thousands of miles across the sea .^ 

 Is it by instinct ? I think not. Professor Huxley has proposed the idea 



