AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
155 
is proper to him. The brute, on the contrary, does not 
survey from an elevated sphere, the discriminations which 
he himself effects, nor those of nature which are in opera- 
tion around him; although these discriminations, as effected 
by himself and by the other subjects of creation around 
him, are calculated to lead him on in the road of analysis, 
did he but possess the proper faculty. May we not then 
infer, — That intellectual and scientific qualities do not be- 
come objective in the minds of brutes; or, that the intel- 
lectual and scientific actions which they perform, are not 
reflected upon or contrived by them as such; thus that they 
possess no intellectual or scientific consciousness, and, con- 
sequently, that no intellectual or scientific design can be at- 
tributecLto them; and, therefore, that so much of intellectual 
or scientific design as appears conspicuous in their actions, 
must be the effect of intellectual and scientific powers or 
energies, acting upon them in a region of their minds above 
the sphere of their proper consciousness ? 
Zoological Journal. 
MIGRATION OF BIRDS.,, 
The migration of birds is a singular provision of nature, 
and though the rapidity . v of their motion makes their passage 
across the widest seas a matter easily accomplished, yet the 
instinct which leads them to change their latitude with the 
seasons is worthy of notice; the more so, that it is also one 
of the resources of man in a state of nature. The same 
necessity, that of finding food, seems to actuate both. The 
Siberian hordes follow the course of vegetation, moving to 
the south as the winter cold nips the vegetation of the north; 
and to the north, as the summer heat parches it in the souths 
The Esquimaux, on the other hand, move to the south in 
summer, and support themselves by hunting, while they 
return northward to the sea in winter, to feed upon seals 
and other breathing natives of the deep, which must keep 
open holes in the ice to preserve their existence. In like 
manner, the migratory flights of birds appear to be chiefly , 
influenced by the necessity of seeking food, though partly 
also by the finding of proper places for rearing their 
young. 
From the nature of their powers of motion, the seasonal 
migrations of quadrupeds are necessarily limited. If they 
be inhabitants of islands, they cannot pass over the sea; 
and upon continents, large rivers, mountains, or desarts, 
limit their range. In Britain, the stag and the roe, which' 
are found only in the uplands in the warm season/ find 
their way to the warm and sheltered plains in the winter; 
and on more extensive lands some of the quadrupeds take 
longer journies; but they are all comparatively limited, 
and extensive migrations are performed only by those ani- 
mals that can make their pathways in the sea or the air. 
The seal, which, during summer, is found in such numbers 
on the dreary shores of Greenland, Jan Mayen, and Spitz- 
bergen, finds its way to Iceland in the winter; but its 
migration is limited; and numbers still remain in the most 
northern regions that have been visited. The inhabitants 
of the water, have, indeed, less necessity for seasonal 
changes of abode than those of the land; as the water 
undergoes less change of temperature, and as some of those 
sea animals which, like the seal, require to come frequently 
to the surface to breathe, do not require to remain long 
above water, or have much of their bodies exposed to the 
air. The grand inconvenience which they seek to avoid, 
appears to be the labour of keeping open those breathing 
holes, without which they could not live under the ice. Or 
if there is any other instinct, it may be the desire of escap- 
ing their enemies, as the bears and the northern people 
watch them at their holes, and make them a sure and easy 
prey. Those who have not thought rightly upon the sub- 
ject, are apt to say that they could not know of those 
dangers, and therefore could not seek to avoid them with- 
out experience! But that is part of the general error into 
which we are so apt to fall when we begin the study of 
nature. We make ourselves the standard of comparison, 
and think of the animals not only as if they had to deal 
with men, but as if they actually were men themselves. 
Whereas, in their natural state they need no teaching, and 
the danger, or the means of life, and the instinct by which 
the one is avoided, and the other secured, are co-existent. 
We are in the habit of attributing superior sagacity to ani- 
mals in certain stages of their being; as we give the “ old 
fox” credit for greater cunning. That may be, indeed, 
must be, true, as regards the arts of man, because the 
means to which he resorts for the capture or destruction of 
animals are not natural, and thus it would be a violation of 
the law of nature to suppose that they should be met by a 
natural instinct. In situations which nature produces, the 
■children of nature are never at a loss; but as the contri- 
vances of man are no part of her plans, it would be con- 
trary to the general law to suppose that they should be 
instinctively provided against these. That they do learn 
a little wisdom from experience, is a proof that they are 
not mere machines; that they are something more than 
mechanical; that life, in the humblest thing that lives, is 
different in kind from the action of mere matter;-' and that 
there runs through the whole of organized being, a philo- 
sophy which man, when he thinks of it, must admire, but 
which he cannot fathom. The animal, or even the plant, 
is not like an engine, confined to certain movements which 
it cannot vary, but has a certain range of volition (if we 
may give it the name) by means of which it can deviate a 
little from that which would otherwise be its path, if that 
path contain ought that is dangerous or inconvenient. Thus, 
