ON THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 
menting Gnat. ‘The days there are long; and 
the beautiful meteorous nights indulge them 
with every opportunity of collecting so minute 
a food: whilst mankind is very sparingly scat- 
tered over that vast northern waste. 
Why then should Zinneus, the great ex- 
plorer of these rude deserts, be amazed at the 
myriads of water fowl that migrated with him out 
of Lapland? which exceeded in multitudes the 
army of Xerves ; covering, for eight whole days 
and nights, the surface of the river Cali. * 
His partial observation as a botanist, would 
confine their food to the vegetable kingdom, al- 
most denied to the Lapland waters ; inattentive 
to a more plenteous table of insect food, which 
the all bountiful Creator had spread for them in 
the wilderness. f 
* Flora Lapponica, 273. Amen. acad. IV. 570. 
+ It may be remarked, that the lakes of mountanous rocky 
countries in general are destitute of plants: few or none are seen 
on those of Switzerland; and Linnaeus makes the same observae 
tion in respect to those of Lapland; having, during his whole 
tovr, discovered only a single specimen of a /emna trisulca, or 
ivy leaved duck’s meat, Flora Lap. No. 470. a few of the scirpus 
lacustris, No. 18. or bullrush; the alopecurus geniculatus, No. 
38. or flote foxtail grass; and the ranunculus aquatilis, No. 234. 
which are all he enumerates in his Prolegomena to that excele 
lent performance. 
395 
