shores before the breeding-season commences, to give a birth-place to their progeny in their own native regions of Sweden, Norway, or Iceland, some of them, such as the snow-bunting, even approaching the Arctic Circle, and performing the office of incubation on the ice-bound coast of Greenland, or amidst the icebergs of Spitzbergen.

It is impossible not to admire the care which Providence has thus manifested, at once to preserve the winged tribes from the fatal effects of a change of climate, too severe for their nature, and to cheer the short summer of the northern regions with the presence of inhabitants, which only a few days of a stern polar winter would destroy. The spring, summer, and autumn of Spitzbergen, for example, are all comprised in the space of a few weeks. Even so late as the end of April, the whole island is a wild and dreary waste of ice and snow; not a sound of animated beings is to be heard ; though the sun, after an absence of four dismal months, has appeared for some time, skirting, with his cold and languid lamp, the edge of the bleak horizon. Gradually, however, he rises higher in the southern heavens; and in May or June, his never-setting orb sheds a genial warmth through the placid air, and on the smiling earth. The change is like that of magic. The snows dissolve, and rush in torrents to the sea. The ground appears, first in spots, and then in one vast unbroken extent, along the valleys, and even on the less elevated hills. Instantly the powers of vegetation burst forth with an energy of which we can scarcely form a conception. In a few days, a land, which seemed the region of perpetual snow, is clothed with the loveliest verdure, and becomes instinct with life. The gaunt bear leaves his cave, where he had spent the winter in a happy torpidity, while numerous insects start from their winter tombs, and flutter gladly in the balmy atmosphere. It is at this auspicious period, that the snowbuntings, and perhaps some other winter birds, having lingered probably for a time in the intervening islands of

Shetland, Faroe, and Iceland, arrive on this awakened coast, which they render vocal with their song; and, while they find a congenial climate, and food adapted to their nature, immediately begin the important offices required for the propagation of the species, obtaining, in this remote island, a retreat comparatively free from the molestation of the enemies of their species. In a few weeks, the sun begins again to lose its genial warmth, and symptoms of approaching winter warn these annual visitants to return to a more temperate climate; but this interval has sufficed, not only for the hatching of the brood, but for their being reared and cherished till they have acquired a strength of wing enabling them to accompany their adventurous parents, in shaping their pathless way for hundreds of miles across a stormy and apparently shoreless ocean, without a single land-mark in the distant horizon to direct their course.

The case of the little snow-bunting is only a particular instance, though a striking one, of that wonderful instinct which belongs to so many of the feathered family. It marks, in a very lively manner, the peculiar features, the extent, and the beneficent intentions of this impulse of a wonder working power; and, while it fills the pious mind with an undefinable feeling of awe, under the sense of a present Deity, directs it to the cheering doctrines, and blessed promises, of Revealed Truth, and may well serve to increase its confidence in the never-failing protection of a reconciled Father, who bestows those secret and mysterious influences of Divine grace, through which the Christian is led " by a way which he knows not," from the wintry scenes of earth, to the glories of an eternal summer.

The snow-bird of America is another of the feathered tribe, which the hand of a beneficent Providence drives northwards to fulfil some important end. When the weather begins to be warm, the snow-bird moves towards the colder regions, and arrives about the Hudson's Bay Factory in June, whence it continues its course still far

ther north, where it breeds. This kind is so numerous as to be found scattered over the greater part, probably the whole, of the northern regions of North America, in great profusion. Speaking of this remarkable species, Mr Wilson says, "In the circuitous route I travelled, of more than 1800 miles, I never passed a day, and scarcely a mile, without seeing numbers of these birds, and frequently large flocks of several thousands."

The impulse which urges these tenants of the air to seek the wilds of the north, is evidently connected with the instinct which leads them to propagate the species; and indeed some naturalists are of opinion, that, in all instances of migration, the same instinct operates. However this may be, it is certain that these little creatures find a more secure retreat in the countries near the Arctic Circle, for the important purpose of incubation, than could readily be chosen in the circle of their summer haunts. But, while they thus escape many formidable enemies, they are probably not altogether free from danger; for their appearance will be hailed as a seasonable boon of Providence, by the scattered inhabitants of these inhospitable regions, who must find, in this annual supply of dainty food, thus mysteriously sent them by an Unseen Hand, an agreeable and wholesome variety, after being confined, during the dismal winter months, to the unvarying sameness of that coarse, unsavoury, and oily nourishment, which their rude skill extracts from the surrounding seas.

EIGHTH WEEK-WEDNESDAY.

HYBERNATION.-BIRDS WHICH PARTIALLY MIGRATE.

THERE are some of the British feathered tribes, which although they do not pass beyond the sea, are yet, to a certain extent, migratory within the bounds of the island. These are chiefly influenced in their change of resi

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dence, by the desire of finding a more remote retreat, the purpose of incubation, or of acquiring a more plentiful supply of food, or, perhaps, in some instances, a more sheltered place of residence during the stormy months. "Of these,” says Mr Rennie, “ may be mentioned, in our country, the curlew and golden-plover, which in winter reside chiefly along the shores, while in summer they betake themselves to the inland lakes and moors; the lapwing, which seems to move northwards in winter; the linnet, which in that season deserts the hilly regions, and approaches the habitations of man; and the dipper, which in summer ascends the streams, towards their sources."

But it is in continental countries, and especially in America, where interminable forests are mingled with districts and bounded by regions cultivated by the labour of man, and teeming with crops of grain, that the most remarkable instances of this kind of partial migration takes place. The countless multitudes of pigeons in that country, which, at particular seasons, shift their residence in continuous and almost interminable flocks, have long been the admiration of travellers. Audubon, in his usual graphic manner, describes a flight of this tribe, of which he was an eye-witness. "In the autumn of 1813," says he, "I left my house at Henderson, on the banks of the Ohio, on my way to Louisville. In passing over the Barrens, a few miles below Hardensburgh, I observed the pigeons flying from north-east to southwest in greater numbers than I thought I had ever seen them before; and feeling an inclination to count the flocks that might pass within the reach of my eye in one hour, I dismounted, seated myself on an eminence, and began to mark with my pencil, making a dot for every flock that passed. In a short time, finding the task that I had undertaken impracticable, as the birds poured on in countless multitudes, I rose, and counting the dots then put down, found 163 had been made in twenty-one minutes. I travelled on, and still met more, the farther

they proceeded. The air was literally filled with pigeons; the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse; the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow; and the continued buzz of wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose." "Before sunset," he adds afterwards, "I reached Louisville, distant from Hardensburgh fifty-five miles. The pigeons were still passing in undiminished numbers, and continued to do so for three days in succession." “The atmosphere, during this time, was strongly impregnated with the peculiar odour which emanates from the species."

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Though not entirely to the point we are considering, we willingly yield to the temptation of inserting a striking passage which occurs in this account:-" I cannot describe to you the extreme beauty of their aerial evolutions, when a hawk chanced to press upon the rear of a flock. At once, like a torrent, and with a noise like thunder, they rushed into a compact mass, pressing upon each other towards the centre. In these almost solid masses, they darted forward in undulating and angular lines, descended, and swept close over the earth, with inconceivable velocity, mounted perpendicularly, so as to resemble a vast column, and, when high, were seen wheeling and twisting within their continued lines, which then resembled the coils of a gigantic serpent."

These flights are, doubtless, in search of food, and may throw some light on the nature of the principle by which migrations are influenced, as they are obviously regulated by an impulse, if not observing and intelligent, at least capable of being adapted to new circumstances, and of taking advantage of new discoveries. Catesby mentions, that since the discovery of America has introduced crops of foreign grain into that once savage and uncultivated country, not only have these comparatively novel articles of food become the familiar resource of native birds from distant regions, but various species of the winged tribes, naturally strangers to that continent, have, by some means, become aware of the ex