KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



209 



NOTES ON THE FEATHERED TRIBES. 

 OUR SPRING VISITORS AND THEIR FOOD. 



Of Birds I sing ; great Nature's happy commoners, 

 That haunt in woods, and meads, and flowery gardens; 

 Rifle the sweets, and taste the choicest fruits, 

 Scorning to ask the lordly owner's leave. 



Rowe. 



EHOLD THE SEASON ARRIVED 

 THAT WAFTS TO OUR SHORES 

 THE MANY HAPPY VOICES 

 AND LITTLE BODIES which, 



year after year, have caused 

 us so much delight and hap- 

 piness ! Day by day, some 

 fresh visitor is dropping in, 

 to swell the throng, and to distil upon us the 

 dew of his flute-like song. They well re- 

 member us; and we as readily recognise 

 them. Let us, whilst they are at muster, 

 talk a little of their late and present move- 

 ments. 



The spring movement of the feathered 

 tribes, as accompanying, or rather as fol- 

 lowing, the apparent declination of the sun, 

 is not only one of the most marked fea- 

 tures of the vernal season, but it is one 

 which, more than most others, proves to us 

 that the provident goodness of the Great 

 Creator extends equally to every portion of 

 our globe, and to every creature by which 

 any one portion of it is inhabited. At the 

 time when the birds begin their northward 

 movement, food for them has failed in the 

 extreme south, in consequence of the long- 

 continued heat and drought of the antarctic 

 summer. They therefore begin to move 

 northward, guided, no doubt, by the supply 

 of food, just as sheep are guided along the 

 more verdant parts of an extensive hill 

 pasture, where they shun those places that 

 afford them no subsistence, and follow the 

 lines of the fertile ones, however crooked 

 these may be. These birds proceed by 

 stages ; and though the movement extends 

 a considerable way southward of the equator, 

 it has, in different species of birds, its be- 

 ginning over a very extensive range of 

 latitude. When driven southward by the 

 severity of the winter, the bird makes no 

 voluntary journey : it is impelled by natural 

 circumstances, and it moves not an inch farther 

 than those circumstances impel it. 



In the winter movement southward the 

 birds are, generally speaking, congregated 

 into flocks ; and those flocks always alight at 

 the first place which can furnish them with a 

 supply of food ; and there they remain until 

 that supply is exhausted, or until it is cut off 

 from them by the weather. When either of 

 these happens, they make another stage 

 southwards, and so continue till they reacli a 

 place where they can And a supply even in 

 the depth of winter. The line of distinction 



between birds which migrate from country to 

 country, in the direction of north and south, 

 and those which migrate between the warm 

 and the cold latitudes, in the same country, 

 without any particular reference to north or 

 south, or any other direction, is not, however, 

 so well defined as that we can distinctly 

 separate the one from the other. We might 

 expect this, because the birds follow their 

 food; and as some of them will naturally 

 follow it in one direction and some in 

 another, we can easily see that the flock 

 which originally moves from a high northern 

 latitude, by being frozen out, must naturally 

 leave a portion in the favorable grounds of 

 each country over which it passes. This must 

 hold true, whatever be the latitude of the 

 most northerly or summer station of the 

 birds ; and thus during the winter they are 

 distributed over all places where a supply of 

 food for them is to be found, so that nothing 

 is lost. There is a considerable difference of 

 this southward movement in different seasons. 

 If the winter is comparatively open and mild 

 in the north, the migrants are fewer, and they 

 do not extend their excursion so far toward 

 the south. If, on the other hand, the winter 

 is uncommonly early and severe, they mi- 

 grate in greater numbers, and extend farther. 

 Those winter excursions necessarily have very 

 considerable influence upon the opposite 

 migration in the spring, especially as to the 

 time at which the spring birds arrive. This 

 year they arrived unusually early — some 

 weeks earlier than is their wont. 



We need not say that if the severity of the 

 weather drives the birds farther to the south 

 in one winter than in another, they must be 

 later in returning northward in the spring ; 

 and this is one of the reasons why calendars 

 stating the particular day of the arrival of 

 any bird can never be accurately supplied. 



When the winter is very severe, heavy 

 snows fall, and continue in much more 

 southerly places than when the winter is 

 milder. But though the early setting-in of 

 those storms may injure the late crops, which 

 are not then gathered in, it must not be 

 thence inferred that they bring nothing but 

 desolation and ruin. The early winter comes 

 with its chilling frost, which alone would 

 destroy the more tender vegetation ; but along 

 with the frost there comes the mantle of snow 

 to be thrown in merciful protection over the 

 suffering earth. It may thus happen, and it 

 certainly often does happen, that a severe 

 winter is followed by a season of extraordi- 

 nary plenty both for man and animals. 

 Among others, the birds are often driven far 

 and long from the regions of the north ; in 

 order that the feast which nature provides 

 for them there, may be more abundant on 

 their return. 



In considerinor the movements of the fea- 



Vol. V.— 14. 



