PASSERINE BIRDS. 
173 
den under mosses, and lichens on large trees ; a third 
upon coleopterous creatures, secreted in the hedge-row 
and the coppice. The gray wagtail finds food with us all 
the year ; but the yellow one must seek it in other 
regions. The nightingale diets upon a peculiar grub, 
and when that is not found in the state he prefers, he 
departs. The domestic swallow feeds round our houses, 
or in the meadow ; but the bank swallow never comes 
near us, chases his food beneath the crag, and along the 
stream. The swift prefers the higher ranges of the air, 
dieting upon the flies that mount into those regions. 
The goatsucker does not notice the creatures of the 
day, capturing the moths and dorrs of the night. The 
wheatear feeds only upon such insects as he finds upon 
fallow lands, the down or the heath ; and thus almost 
every individual might be characterized by some pro- 
pensity of appetite, by some mode or place of feeding ; 
and hence individuals are found as tenants of the home- 
stead, the wild, the stream, the air, rock, down, and 
grove — in every place finding plenty, and fulfilling their 
destination without rivalry or contention : nor perhaps 
is there any race of creatures that associates more inno- 
cently, or passes their lives more free from bickering 
and strife, than these our land-birds do, persevering, from 
period to period, with undeviating habits and propen- 
sities, manifesting an original appointment and fixed 
design of Providence, whose bounteous table, wherever 
we look around, is spread for all, and good things meted 
out to each by justice, weight, and measure. 
I am neither inclined to seek after, nor desirous of 
detailing, the little annoyances that these wildings of 
nature, in their hard struggles for existence,, may occa- 
sionally produce ; being fully persuaded that the petty 
injuries we sometimes sustain from birds are at others 
fully compensated by their services. We too often, 
perhaps, notice the former, while the latter are remote, 
or not obtrusive. I was this day (Jan. 25) led to reflect 
upon the extensive injury that might be produced by 
the agency of a very insignificant instrument, in ob- 
serving the operations of the common bunting (emberiza 
miliaris) ; a bird that seems to live principally, if not 
P 2 
