AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 



155 



is proper to him. The brute, on the contrary, does not 

 survey from an elevated sphere, the discriminations which 

 he himself effects, nor those of nature which are in opera- 

 tion around him; although these discriminations, as effected 

 by himself and by the other subjects of creation around 

 him, are calculated to lead him on in the road of analysis, 

 did he but possess the proper faculty. May we not then 

 infer, — That intellectual and scientific qualities do not be- 

 come objective in the minds of brutes; or, that the intel- 

 lectual and scientific actions which they perform, are not 

 reflected upon or contrived by them as such; thus that they 

 possess no intellectual or scientific consciousness, and, con- 

 sequently, that no intellectual or scientific design can be at- 

 tributed to them; and, therefore, that so much of intellectual 

 or scientific design as appears conspicuous in their actions, 

 must be the effect of intellectual and scientific powers or 

 energies, acting upon them in a region of their minds above 

 the sphere of their proper consciousness ? 



Zoological Journal. 



MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 



The migration of birds is a singular provision of nature, 

 and though the rapidity of their motion makes their passage 

 across the widest seas a matter easily accomplished, yet the 

 instinct which leads them to change their latitude with the 

 seasons is worthy of notice: the more so, that it is also one 

 of the resources of man in a state of nature. The same 

 necessity, that of finding food, seems to actuate both. The 

 Siberian hordes follow the course of vegetation, moving to 

 the south as the winter cold nips the vegetation of the north; 

 and to the north, as the summer heat parches it in the south. 

 The Esquimaux, on the other hand, move to the south in 

 summer, and support themselves by hunting, while they 

 return northward to the sea in winter, to feed upon seals 

 and other breathing natives of the deep, which must keep 

 open holes in the ice to preserve their existence. In like 

 manner, the migratory flights of birds appear to be chiefly 

 influenced by the necessity of seeking food, though partly 

 also by the finding of proper places for rearing their 

 young. 



From the nature of their powers of motion, the seasonal 

 migrations of quadrupeds are necessarily limited. If they 

 be inhabitants of islands, they cannot pass over the sea; 

 and upon continents, large rivers, mountains, or desarts, 

 limit their range. In Britain, the stag and the roe, which 

 are found only in the uplands in the warm season, find 

 their way to the warm and sheltered plains in the winter; 

 and on more extensive lands some of the quadrupeds take 

 longer journies; but they are all comparatively limited, 

 and extensive migrations are performed only by those ani- 

 mals that can make their pathways in the sea or the air. 



The seal, which, during summer, is found in such numbers 

 on the dreary shores of Greenland, Jan Mayen, and Spitz- 

 bergen, finds its way to Iceland in the winter; but its 

 migration is limited; and numbers still remain in the most 

 northern regions that have been visited. The inhabitants 

 of the water, have, indeed, less necessity for seasonal 

 changes of abode than those of the land; as the water 

 undergoes less change of temperature, and as some of those 

 sea animals which, like the seal, require to come frequently 

 to the surface to breathe, do not require to remain long 

 above water, or have much of their bodies exposed to the 

 air. The grand inconvenience which they seek to avoid, 

 appears to be the labour of keeping open those breathing 

 holes, without which they could not live under the ice. Or 

 if there is any other instinct, it may be the desire of escap- 

 ing their enemies, as the bears and the northern people 

 watch them at their holes, and make them a sure and easy 

 prey. Those who have not thought rightly upon the sub- 

 ject, are apt to say that they could not know of those 

 dangers, and therefore could not seek to avoid them with- 

 out experience. But that is part of the general error into 

 which we are so apt to fall when we begin the study of 

 nature. We make ourselves the standard of comparison, 

 and think of the animals not only as if they had to deal 

 with men, but as if they actually were men themselves. 

 Whereas, in their natural state they need no teaching, and 

 the danger, or the means of life, and the instinct by which 

 the one is avoided, and the other secured, are co-existent. 

 We are in the habit of attributing superior sagacity to ani- 

 mals in certain stages of their being; as we give the "old 

 fox" credit for greater cunning. That may be, indeed, 

 must be, true, as regards the arts of man, because the 

 means to which he resorts for the capture or destruction of 

 animals are not natural, and thus it would be a violation of 

 the law of nature to suppose that they should be met by a 

 natural instinct. In situations which nature produces, the 

 children of nature are never at a loss; but as the contri- 

 vances of man are no part of her plans, it would be con- 

 trary to the general law to suppose that they should be 

 instinctively provided against these. That they do learn 

 a little wisdom from experience, is a proof that they are 

 not mere machines; that they are something more than 

 mechanical; that life, in the humblest thing that lives, is 

 different in kind from the action of mere matter; and that 

 there runs through the whole of organized being, a philo- 

 sophy which man, when he thinks of it, must admire, but 

 which he cannot fathom. The animal, or even the plant, 

 is not like an engine, confined to certain movements which 

 it cannot vary, but has a certain range of volition (if we 

 may give it the name) by means of which it can deviate a 

 little from that which would otherwise be its path, if that 

 path contain ought that is dangerous or inconvenient. Thus, 



