OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS 



BIRDS IN GENERAL 



In severe weather, fieldfares, red-wings, sky-larks, and 

 tit-larks, resort to watered meadows for food; the latter 

 wades up to its belly in pursuit of the pupae of insects, 

 and runs along upon the floating grass and weeds. Many 

 gnats are on the snow near the water, these support the 

 birds in part. 



Birds are much influenced in their choice of food by 

 colour, for though white currants are a much sweeter fruit 

 than red, yet they seldom touch the former tiU they have 

 devoured every bunch of the latter. 



Red-starts, fly-catchers, and black-caps, arrive early in 

 April. If these little delicate beings are birds of passage 

 (as we have reason to suppose they are, because they are 

 never seen in winter) how could they, feeble as they seem, 

 bear up against such storms of snow and rain, and make 

 their way through such meteorous turbulences, as one 

 should suppose would embarrass and retard the most 

 hardy and resolute of the winged nation ? Yet they keep 

 their appointed times and seasons ; and in spite of frosts 

 and winds return to their stations periodically, as if they 

 had met with nothing to obstruct them. The withdrawing 

 and appearance of the short winged summer birds is a very 

 puzzling circumstance in natural history 1 



When the boys bring me wasps' nests, my bantam fowls 

 fare deliciously, and when the combs are puUed to pieces, 



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