318 
THE CANADIAN 
NATURALIST 
densis) on their aerial voyage from the frozen regions of 
Boothia Felix to the Father of Waters/' Chesapeake Bay. 
I have observed several other flocks lately^ all pursuing the 
same southerly course. 
F, — What a mysterious instinct is that v^hich impels 
these and similar birds to seek^ at a certain season,, over thou- 
sands of intervening miles^ such apparently inhospitable 
climes, to remain but a few weeks^ then to retrace the same 
journey ! And this^ year after year, with such undeviating 
uniformity, ''^knowing the times and the seasons/' What 
is the motive of so toilsome a pilgrimage ? Is it to pro- 
cure food ? one should suppose that the sedges and grasses 
of our coasts, our marshes, our rivers^ the shell-fish of our 
beaches^ and the worms of our meads^ would afford these 
birds fully as abundant and as suitable food as the regions 
of Hudson's Bay. Do they seek those impenetrable recesses 
for the sake of bringing up their young in security, their 
jealousy being of so ultra a character, that the very pos- 
sibility of intrusion is intolerable ? Or is their blood of so 
high and heated a nature, that they cannot bear the tem- 
perature of our summers ? What do we know, with all the 
researches of modern science, concerning the nature or causes 
of migration in general ? It is a subject yet enveloped in 
much darkness, which we are not able to penetrate. Doth 
the hawk fly by wisdom, and stretch her wings towards 
the south?'' — 
Here is a curious specimen of vegetation ; this was a sheaf 
of timothy grass, which was reaped with others about a 
month ago, to be threshed for grass seed, but this one being 
overlooked has lain upon the ground ever since. The warm 
rains of the past month have caused the seed to germinate ; 
and now, see what a host of little straight green sprouts 
arise from every stalk, and what a matted mass of fibrous 
roots is the underside, which has lain on the earth I 
