86 
MIGRATION AND FLIGHT. 
of the nobility as delicacies with other game, from which we 
may infer that they were at that time as rare in Norfolk as 
they still are in some parts of Russia, owing probably to the 
same cause, viz., the limited state of tillage and growth of 
corn. # 
The Rice-Buntings, natives of Cuba, after the planting of 
rice in the Carolinas, annually quit the island in myriads, and 
flying over wide seas, land, to partake of a harvest introduced 
there from distant India. It is, however, only the female 
Ricebird that migrates ; for of the numbers visiting Carolina, 
it is said not a single male is ever found. 
The foregoing instances, while they assure us (if assurance 
was necessary) that birds at wonted times change their habi- 
tations, still add to, rather than remove, the difficulties as to 
the real causes. But if of these we must for the present 
remain in ignorance, we have enough left in the actual facts 
of migration to call forth all our wonder, in considering 
the regularity, order, and discipline with which these unac- 
countable journeys are conducted, and the unknown compass 
placed within the bosoms of these airy travellers, enabling 
them to go, and return from, points thousands of miles apart, 
with as much certainty as the sailor steers his ship across the 
wide ocean by his skill in navigation, and that mysterious 
needle ever pointing to the north. Neither is this instinct 
confined to birds ; it has been observed in turtles, which cross 
the ocean from the Bay of Honduras to the Cayman Isles, 
near Jamaica, a distance of 450 miles, without the aid of 
chart or compass, and with an accuracy superior to human 
skill ; for it is affirmed, that vessels which have lost their 
reckoning in hazy weather, have steered entirely by the noise 
of the turtles in swimming. The object of their voyage, as 
in the case of birds, is for the purpose of laying their eggs on 
a spot peculiarly favourable. 
It is, indeed, this instinctive power and stimulus which is 
the real point to excite our astonishment in the migration of 
* See Household and Privy-purse Accounts of the L’Estranges of 
Hunstanton, communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by Daniel 
Gurney, Esq., F.S.A. 
