-a Divine energy, the object of which they do not understand, but which most wonderfully guides them to the previous means, as well as to the ultimate action.

The following beautiful verses of an American poet, addressed to a Waterfowl, finely allude to this instinct of migration, and to the feelings it ever ought to inspire.

"Whither, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-
The desert and illimitable air,-

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,

At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou 'rt gone; the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright."

BRYANT.

It is chiefly during the months of autumn that these remarkable migrations take place, which I have noticed in the Winter' volume. On this subject, all that remains for me, at present, is, to state a few particulars,

'

referring the reader to that part of the work for more general details of the nature and principle of this very remarkable movement.

On looking over a list of British birds, which migrate during the course of this season, I find that there are thirteen different kinds which leave the country in August, twenty-nine in September, and nine in October; while, neither in the preceding nor the subsequent months, are there any departures. On the other hand, the place of these emigrants is supplied from the north, by fifteen species which arrive in August, ten which arrive in September, and eight which arrive in October. Numbers also arrive during the winter months, of which seven kinds appear in November, seventeen in December, and

five in January.

It is worthy of remark, that of the birds which leave the British shores during autumn, upwards of thirty species frequent the heaths and woods, or the fields, hedges, and gardens; while but a few are inhabitants of the shores, lakes, and rivers; whereas, of those which visit the country, at this season, to become winter residents, there are but eight species which do not haunt the water, most of these being found on the seabeach. The reason for this. it is not difficult to understand. In winter, the food of birds becomes scarce in the hills, valleys, and forests; but it is otherwise in the marshy and inland waters, and on the shores of the ever-flowing and ebbing sea, where various inhabitants of the watery element are generally accessible; always indeed on the beach during the reflux of the tide, and in other places, when the frost is not so intense as to bind even the fountains and running streams in icy chains. It is striking to observe the economy of Providence in this respect. He has sent the summer birds to southern climes, in search of the food which is ready to fail them, while, from sterner regions, He has invited fowls of other wing, and other habits, to reap the new harvests which He has provided for them, in conformity with their constitution, and the peculiar nature of the locality, and the season.

One of the most interesting and familiar tribes of birds

IV.

6

X.

is that of the swallow. It consists of several distinct families, whose habits are various. Of these the martlet, or swift, departs among the first of the feathered race. The following remarks on this migration, extracted from the Mirror of the Months,' are worthy of notice. "In the middle of this month, (August,) we shall lose sight entirely of that most airy, active, and indefatigable of all the winged people, the temple-haunting martlet.' Unlike the rest of its tribe, it breeds but once in the season; and its young having now acquired much of their astonishing power of wing, young and old all hurry away together, no one can tell whither. The sudden departure of the above singular species of the swallow tribe, when every thing seems to conform together for their delight; when the winds are hushed, and the summer still lingers, and the air, in which they feed, is laden with plenty for them, and all the troubles and anxieties attendant on the coming of their young broods are at an end,—that, at the very moment when all these favorable circumstances combine to make them happy, they should suddenly disappear, is one of those facts which have hitherto baffled all inquirers. All that we can make of this mysterious de-parture, is, to accept it as an omen, the earliest and most certain, that the departure of summer is nigh at hand.”

There is yet another, and a more important truth which we may confidently deduce from this phenomenon, when we view it in connexion with the lessons taught by other analogies, which is, that the instinct that leads these aerial travellers so suddenly, and without any known material cause, to take their flight from our shores, doubtless directs them to regions where a still more abundant supply of grateful food is provided for them; where their presence is necessary for preserving the due balance of nature, by the destruction of the insects of another climate, and where they can securely spend the wintermonths amidst a profusion which would soon have been denied them in their native haunts. We may not certainly know that Africa is their destination, although the presumptions for this belief are pregnant; but we do certainly know that, to whatever quarter they migrate, they

are directed thither by a wisdom far superior to their

own.

The other swallow tribes disappear at a season considerably later. The following account of the habits of the house swallow, on the eve of its departure, which first appeared in the Sheffield Mercury,' is too interesting and characteristic to require any apology for its insertion.

"Early in the month of September, 1815, that beautiful and social tribe of the feathered race, began to assemble in the neighborhood of Rotherham, at the Willow Ground, near the Glasshouse, preparatory to their migration to a warmer climate, and their numbers were daily augmented until they became a vast flock which no man could easily number,-thousands and tens of thousands; so great, indeed, that the spectator would almost have concluded that the whole of the swallow race were there collected in one vast host. It was their manner, while there, to rise from the willows in the morning, a little before six o'clock, when their thick columns literally darkened the sky. In the evening, about five o'clock, they began to return to their station, and continued coming in from all quarters till near dark. It was here that you might see them going through their various aerial evolutions, in many a sportive ring and airy gambol, strengthening their pinions, in their playful feats, for their long jourA thousand pleasing twitters arose from their little throats, as they cut the air, and frolicked in the last beams of the setting sun, or lightly skimmed the surface of the glassy pool. The notes of those that had already gained the willows sounded like the murmur of a distant waterfall, or the dying roar of the retreating billow on the seabeach.

ney.

"The verdant enamel of summer had already given place to the warm and mellow tints of autumn, and the leaves were now fast falling from the branches, while the naked tops of many of the trees appeared; the golden sheaves were safely lodged in the barns, and the reapers had, for this year, shouted their harvest-home. Frosty and misty mornings now succeeded, the certain presages of the approach of winter. These omens were understood by the swallows, as the route of their march. Ac

cordingly, on the morning of the 7th October, their mighty army broke up their encampment, debouched from their retreat, and rising, covered the heavens with their legions. Thence, directed by an Unerring Guide, they took their trackless way. On the morning of their going, when they ascended from their temporary abode, they did not, as they had been wont to do, divide into different columns, and take each a different route, but went off, in one vast body, bearing to the south.”*

SECOND WEEK-SATURDAY.

THE WOODS.-THEIR AUTUMNAL APPEARANCE.

UNDER the title of 'the woods,' will be found in the 'Spring' volume some general observations, on the appearance of silvan scenery in that delightful season, when Nature first bursts her winter cerements, and comes smiling forth from her annual tomb. The attractions of the woods are not diminished during the autumnal months, although they are changed. They have ceased to give rise to those pleasing associations which connect them with the simplicity and innocency of infancy in all the loveliness of its opening charms, and which bestow so tender an interest on the scenery, while its beauties are still but partially developed. Every tree and shrub is now

* A friend who is an accurate observer of Nature, and a wellknown antiquarian, has sent me the following notice of a migration of larks, and other small birds, which he witnessed between twenty and thirty years ago, while residing in the parish of Jarraw, in the county of Durham, which lies along the seacoast. "Fine open weather lingered on till the middle of the winter quarter, when, in a still calm night, snow fell uniformly over the whole island to the depth of several inches, and was succeeded, for two days, by a glittering frost. During the whole of these days, especially on the first, innumerable quantities of larks, and other small birds, not in flocks, but in one continued stream, derected their flight all day due south. They kept so near to the earth tainl at every hedge they had to rise. A few days after, the London presipapers mentioned that larks had been taken in such quantities in ighborhood, I think, of Dunstable, or some part of Bedfordshire, ey sold at a very small price by the score.

tainly