MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 
Ill 
food of which is solely insects, could assuredly find a 
sufficient supply of such diet during the summer months, 
in the woods and thickets of those mild regions, where 
they passed the season of winter, and every bank and 
unfrequented wild would furnish a secure asylum for 
them and their offspring during the period of incubation. 
The passage to our shores is a long and dangerous one, 
and some imperative motive for it must exist ; and, 
until facts manifest the reason, we may perhaps, without 
injury to the cause of research, conjecture for what ob- 
ject these perilous transits are made. We know that 
all young creatures require particularly compounded 
nutriment during their infant state ; and nature, as far 
as we are acquainted with it, has made in every instance 
provision for a supply of fitting aliment. In many in- 
stances, where the removal of station could not be con- 
veniently accomplished, instinct has been given the 
parent to provide the fitting aliment for its new-born 
young. Thus insects, in some cases, store their cells 
with food ready for the animation of their progeny ; in 
others, place their eggs in such situations, as will afford 
it when they are hatched. The mammalia, at least the 
quadrupeds belonging to this class, which could least 
conveniently move their station, have supplies given 
them of a milky secretion for this purpose. Birds have 
nothing of this nature, and make no provision for their 
young ; but they of all creatures, except fishes, can 
seek what may be required in distant stations with most 
facility. A sufficiency of food for the adult parent may 
be found in every climate, yet the aliment necessary 
for its offspring may not. Countries and even counties 
produce insects that differ, if not in species, at least in 
numbers ; and many young birds we cannot succeed in 
rearing, or do it very partially, by reason of our igno- 
rance of the requisite food. Every one, who has made 
the attempt, well knows the various expedients he has 
resorted to, of boiled meats, bruised seeds, hard eggs, 
boiled rice, and twenty other substances, that nature 
never presents, in order to find a diet that will nourish 
them ; but Mr. Montague’s failure in being able to 
