WILLOCK.. 



549 



shores, where they are never impeded by ice from diving- after their 

 favourite prey, the sprat, which is there found in abundance throughout 

 the winter. The foolish guillemot and the razor-bill, on the contrary, 

 are indigenous to this country, breed on most of our higher cliffs that 

 form a barrier to the ocean, and, after performing the great dictates of 

 nature, invariably leave our shores, and retreat to some more southern 

 climate ; nor is one to be found amongst the lesser guillemots and 

 black-billed auks, in the winter season, so far north as Scotland, an 

 accidental maimed bird excepted ; and only one or two instances have 

 occurred, in which the foolish guillemot was found on the most 

 southern parts of the island (Devonshire) at that season. Thus has 

 nature assigned to these birds their limited stations, by forming them 

 of different temperaments ; the more tender species that winter in the 

 southern parts of Europe, and on the coasts of Africa, return with the 

 spring to our temperate climate, and, as it were, push on the hardier 

 species to their northern destination ; and in part supply the place of 

 the foolish guillemot and razor-bill during the winter, and the reverse 

 is the consequence of our nearer approach to the sun. 



It is, besides, contrary to every principle of reasoning upon natural 

 causes, to suppose, that when the foolish guillemot and razor-bill re- 

 tire in the autumn, from the southern parts of England, they should 

 go to the north of Scotland, and be converted by a change of plumage 

 into the two former. The supposition that any bird should migrate 

 northward to pass the winter, is in direct violation of the actual cause 

 of the propensity to migrate. Every species of animal that shifts its 

 quarters with the seasons, breeds in the higher, and passes the winter 

 in the lower latitudes. Those who may have formed an opinion that 

 the two first are the young of the others, should be asked to produce 

 an instance of so unnatural a case, as that of all the young of any spe- 

 cies remaining behind to winter in a northern country, while the old 

 birds seek a more southern climate. Besides, those who favour such 

 an opinion must go further, for they must also believe that when the 

 old birds leave England in the autumn, to winter along the shores of 

 the southern parts of the Continent, the young birds take a contrary 

 direction, and accumulate in the north of Scotland, as far as Zetland ; 

 in which parts they are infinitely more abundant than any where 

 further south. More need not be said to convince any reasoning mind 

 of the unphilosophical principle of such an opinion. Whatever varia- 

 tion may have appeared in the change of plumage of some, for which 

 we cannot so readily account, we may be assured our safest guide are the 

 habits, and those alone must convince us of the difference of the species 



