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AN EARLY WORK ON BIRD-MIGRATION. 



By W. Ruskin Butterfield. 



It is always interesting, and often amusing, to trace the 

 early attempts to explain such complex phenomena as those of 

 bird-migration. So far as I am aware, the earliest treatise on 

 migration published in this country is a rare duodecimo tract of 

 fifty pages issued anonymously in 1703. Its scope is fully in- 

 dicated in the title-page, which is as follows : — 



* An Essay Towards the Probable Solution of this Question. 

 Whence come the Stork and the Turtle, the Crane and 

 the Swallow, when they Know and Observe the appointed 

 Time of their Coming. Or Where those Birds do probably 

 make their Recess and Abode, which are absent from our 

 Climate at some certain Times and Seasons of the Year. 

 By a Person of Learning and Piety. London, Printed for 

 Samuel Crouch, at the Corner of Pope's-Head-Alley, over 

 against the Royal Exchange. 1703.' 



After a somewhat diffuse and not very pertinent argument 

 the author announces (on p. 18) his " probable solution," 

 namely, that migratory birds, on leaving this country, retreat 

 to the moon ! 



Sixty days are allowed (p. 40) for the outward journey, and a 

 similar period of time for the return journey. The explanation 

 of the manner in which the space beyond the earth's atmosphere 

 is traversed is, naturally enough, not very convincing to readers 

 nowadays. 



The author's answer to the objection that a bird will require 

 to eat and sleep during the journey is characteristic of his 

 reasoning, and may be here transcribed. He says: — "As to 

 eating, it may possibly be [i. e. exist] without in that temper of 

 the iEther where it passeth, which may not be apt to prey upon 

 its Spirits as our lower nitreous Air ; and yet even here Bears 



