MIGRATION. 
389 
alight in the fields on the coast, and run on, hundreds of 
miles! 
My father gives the following, the result of his own 
observation, as proof of the fact of birds migrating on 
foot:—“ One autumn I received a Moorhen, which had 
been caught by the hand in a wood-shed, that lay not 
very far from a small brook. This bird had evidently 
migrated running; it had heard the rippling of the water, 
and, running towards it, entered the shed, however, 
instead, where its progress was arrested by the back wall. 
A Spotted Crake was once caught in a similar manner in a 
house, the back-door of which was provided with a hole 
to allow of the ingress and egress of the Barn-door 
Fowls, while the front one opened on to a rivulet. The bird 
had evidently got there in the same way as the Moorhen 
had entered the wood-shed. Had these birds been 
migrating on the wing they would have alighted on the 
banks of the stream, as Water Pipits, Snipes, Ducks, and 
others do.” 
Birds like to travel under the auspices of the most 
experienced of their class; if possible, of those whose habits 
are similar, and whose society is not fraught with danger 
to themselves. This is done by several of the smaller 
Marsh-birds, who attach themselves to larger, more 
intelligent, and especially shyer species: they migrate 
with them, and avail themselves of their guidance to 
foreign lands. We see something similar to this when 
our Starlings pay their late summer visit to the Books, 
going about with them in the fields, and apparently 
regarding them as their leaders. 
Thus these happy creatures wander joyously and with¬ 
out difficulty to foreign climes : they come back home in 
a much gayer humour, however, and twice as quickly as 
