MIGRATION. 
373 
exile, and where they contrive to make themselves happy 
for the time, though a foreign soil can never replace to 
them their native land. The bird wanders about every¬ 
where, though to it “ there is no place like home.” 
An inexplicable longing, and to us an incomprehen¬ 
sible presentiment of coming events, drives the bird from 
us before dearth is in any way apparent, or food begins to 
fail at home. This presentiment is not, however, as our old 
preceptor Naumann imagines, limited to a twenty-four or 
thirty-six hours’ vista into futurity, but shows itself much 
earlier. Birds, without having experienced any deficiency 
in food, or felt the effects of cold, are already preparing 
for their journey. It is just previous to taking their 
departure that they are in the finest condition; many, 
like the Quail, are so plump that the skin will burst by 
reason of the immense layers of fat underneath, if the 
bird is shot or falls on the hard ground. “ Many,” says 
my father,—“ for example : Ospreys, Short-eared Owls, 
Boilers, Cuckoos, Shrikes, Woodcocks, Snipes, and 
different Sandpipers,—are, at this season, coated with 
fat, and yet they migrate.” If want of nourishment is the 
cause of migration, birds must have already suffered from 
hunger, and in some degree have wasted away; but this 
is not at all the case; for though all birds are not as fat 
previous to quitting us as those just mentioned, still we 
do not meet with any emaciated specimens before the 
“passage.” Thus, actual want cannot be the reason for 
wandering, but rather the presentiment of dearth in 
prospective. Cage-birds, though well fed and kept per¬ 
fectly warm, are seized with the same longing as their 
wild relations when the season for departure comes 
round. As long as the “passage” lasts, so long are they 
restless in their cages, fluttering uneasily all night long, 
