22 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 
April 14th, 1881. 
Dr G-eikie, F.B.S., President, in the Chair. 
NEW MEMBERS. 
Mrs Robert Pullar and Mr Sydney Keith, Perth, were 
elected members of the Society. 
The following gentlemen were nominated for election at 
next meeting:—Mr Thomas Hunter, Mr James Young, 
and Mr David Mackie, all of Perth. 
The following paper was read :— 
“ How Some Animals Spend the Winter.” By Rev. Thomas 
Brown, of Collace. 
The return of winter, and the change which it produces 
in the general appearance as well as the actual condition 
of Nature around us, naturally suggests the inquiry 
how do the lower animals, or at least some of them, 
spend the winter? How do they get on when the food 
supply has in a great measure, if not entirely, failed? 
and what becomes of them when they disappear, as 
many of them do during that season, from our sight? 
Where do they go, and how do they live ? Passing over, 
then, the winter life of the insects, which is a subject 
too extensive to be dealt with in a paper such as the 
present, let us look for a little at what I may call the 
extraordinary winter life of some of our birds, mammals, 
and reptiles. 
Many of our birds, to begin with them, live altogether 
upon insects, and others of them do so to a considerable 
extent. But in winter, as we know, there are not many 
insects to be easily found, and, therefore, if they are to 
exist at all, some special provision must be made for them. 
And accordingly, prompted by the instinct of migration 
which has been implanted within them, numbers of our 
birds follow their food to other countries, and spend the 
winter there. Thus, for example, of all our Hirundines, 
the swallow family, not one remains with us during the 
winter season. They all betake themselves to Africa, 
crossing by the Straits of Gibraltar, and continuing their 
journey in a westerly direction for the banks of the River 
Senegal, where, Mr Adamson informs us, they arrive after 
October, and where they remain during the winter, again 
making their appearance at Gibraltar between the middle 
of February and the first week in March, on their return 
to our own and other countries. Even our short-winged 
birds, whose powers of flight and endurance are by no 
means so great as those of the Hirundines, forsake us 
during the winter for other and warmer countries far more 
extensively than we are aware of until we note their 
absence from among us. Of our two fly-catchers, both 
leave us during the winter. Of our three chats, only one 
remains with us. Of our six thrushes, one leaves us. Of 
our twelve warblers, in which family is included some of 
our most noted song birds, eleven leave us during the 
winter, and only one, the robin, remains to cheer us with 
his presence, and sometimes with his song. And of our 
three wagtails, only one remains with us. Of these and 
other birds which leave us in the winter, by far the 
greater number take up their abode in North Africa, which 
may be regarded as the winter paradise of our own and 
other European birds. Others, again, do not extend their 
flight so far, and confine themselves to the Continent of 
Europe; while'others pursue their journey as far as the 
shores of the Black and Caspian Seas, and the adjacent 
country. It is pretty well ascertained, for example, that 
the nightingale, when it leaves our shores, betakes itself to 
Palestine, Persia, Smyrna, and Aleppo, in all of which 
localities it has been found in great numbers during 
the winter. The cuckoo has also been found at 
Aleppo during its absence from this country; and 
as it is seen twice a-year in large flocks at Malta, there is 
little doubt that it spends its winter in Asia as a general 
rule, although it has also been found in North-west Africa. 
Our noisy friend, the corn-craik, spends his winter in 
Holland. And the blackcap, the greater pettichaps, and 
others of our birds, spend the winter in the vicinity of 
Rome, and in Italy generally. WMle a number of our 
birds, however, thus leave us to spend the winter in foreign 
climes, there are others which are bred in Norway and 
Sweden,.and within the sweep of the Arctic Circle, which 
come to spend the winter with us, and which are never 
seen in this country during the summer months. These 
winter visitants chiefly belong to the hard-billed birds of 
the Insessorial order, such as the fieldfares, siskins, &e.; 
to the Grallatorial birds, such as the sanderling, turn- 
stone, woodcock, and snipe, the two latter of which par¬ 
ticularly remain with us all year, but receive each year 
large accessions to their numbers from Norway. And 
also the Natatorial birds, or swimmers, such as the wild- 
goose, wildducks, gulls, &c., whose feeding ground in the 
Far North has been sealed up by the arctic frosts, and to 
