984 Birds. 



remarkable that so few observations have been made with a view of 

 illustrating what may be called the partial migration of birds. Fifty 

 years have elapsed since the quoted passage was originally penned ; 

 and we have made little or no progress in ascertaining the period, the 

 manner, or the cause of these partial migrations. We might select 

 the goldfinch as an example of a partial migrant. On looking over 

 Mr. Yarrell's work, I find no allusion made to the subject ; in fact, 

 this bird is treated by Mr. Yarrell and other ornithologists as an un- 

 doubted resident. Yet in Herefordshire the goldfinch arrives with 

 the swallow, and so abundantly, that no garden or orchard is without 

 its supply. In autumn, the young are almost innumerable : young 

 and old collect in large flocks, frequenting road-sides, gardens, or- 

 chards, woods and fields, particularly places where thistles have seed- 

 ed. These flocks move from place to place, still never leaving the 

 neighbourhood till October ; they then depart : a few birds linger 

 about till November, and then all are gone. In the months of Decem- 

 ber, January and February, a single goldfinch cannot be found : you 

 may search the woods, the hills, the meadows ; you have no better 

 chance of finding goldfinches than swallows. It is said that gold- 

 finches resort to our gardens to breed ; so do martins resort to our 

 houses to breed : but it were a most illogical conclusion to assert that 

 when the process of incubation was over, and during the remainder of 

 the year, goldfinches and martins might be found in the woods and 

 on the heaths. 



'The Zoologist' has widely disseminated a taste for the observation 

 of facts. This taste is rapidly increasing ; and let me recommend to 

 my readers the great advantage of perseverance and accuracy. There 

 is no part of the history of birds involved in such mystery as their mi- 

 grations : there is none to which such attention has been given. A 

 few ornithologists furnish bright exceptions to the rule, but generally 

 speaking, naturalists are content with the fact, that the swallow, the 

 cuckoo, and a few warblers, arrive in the spring and depart in the au- 

 tumn. I would suggest to my readers to give faithful records of all 

 arrivals and departures in their respective neighbourhoods : to pay 

 the most rigid attention to accuracy : and in those instances in which 

 they might perhaps be imperfectly acquainted with a species, to omit 

 all mention of it, rather than introduce any error into their commu- 

 nications : I doubt not that the aggregate of facts thus collected will 

 thoroughly establish the views expressed in the passage I have cited 

 from Bewick's Introduction. I have no doubt we shall find that most 

 birds migrate at fixed periods of the year, although I am prepared 



