72 THE NATUEALIST IN BERMUDA. 



The golden plover of America visits the Bermudas only 

 at the season of its great southern migration. A few of 

 these birds are met with as early as the 1st of September, 

 or, very rarely, a few days earKer, but, as a general rule, 

 these wonderful migrants pass over the Bermudas in large 

 and numerous flocks, between the 10th and 17th of Sep- 

 tember. Should the weather be favourable at the time, 

 these flocks pass on at a considerable elevation, in a south, 

 or south-easterly direction, their usual form of flight repre- 

 sentiag a leading cluster, from which trail two, and some- 

 times three long liues of single file. In vain does the 

 would-be-sportsman watch these passing flocks by day, 

 or listens to the piping whistle of the multitudes, which 

 are distinctly heard moving in the same direction during 

 the stUl hours of starlight ; not a bird condescends to 

 alight on the sea-girt isles, although a distance of seven or 

 eight hundred miles of ocean must have been traversed on 

 the wing to gain their position ; onward they go to the 

 southward, over the vast Atlantic, with a still longer flight 

 before them ere they can reach terra firma ! How wonder- 

 ful must be the power of flight, thus to enable mere land 

 birds to make the ocean their highway from one region of 

 the earth to another, without food, and without a resting- 

 place ! More wonderful still, that divine impulse under 

 which these feathered legions move, and by which they are 

 guided across this immensity of open sea at the '' appointed 

 time." 



Hurricanes sometimes rage with fearful violence in the 

 latitude of our West India possessions at this season. In 

 their course to the north, these hurricanes pass to the 

 westward of the Bermudas, sometimes almost Avithin sight 



