the inclemency of the season even by our fire-sides.
has prettily described the annual visits of this guest:

The red breast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky,
In joyless fields, and thorny thickets, leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half afraid, he first

Thomson*

Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm earth; then hopping o'er the floor
Eyes all the smiling family askance,

And pecks and starts, and wonders where he is:
'Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his slender feet.

The great beauty of that celebrated poet consists in his elegant and just descriptions of the economy of animals; and the happy use he hath made of natural knowledge in descriptive poetry, shines through almost every page of his Seasons. The affection this bird has for mankind, is also recorded in that ancient ballad, The babes in the wood; a composition of a most beautiful and pathetic simplicity. It is the first trial of our humanity: the child that refrains from tears on hearing that read, gives but a bad presage of the tenderness of his future sensations.

In the spring this bird retires to breed in the thickest coverts, or the most concealed holes of walls and other buildings. The eggs are of a dull white, sprinkled with reddish spots. Its song is reinarkably fine and soft; and the more to be valued, as we enjoy it the greatest part of the winter, and early in the spring, and even through great part of the summer; but its notes are part of that time drowned in the general warble of the season. Many of the autumnal songsters seem to be the young cock red-breasts of that year.

The bill is dusky: the forehead, chin, throat, and breasts, are of a deep orange-colour: the head, hind part of the neck, the back, and tail, are of a deep ash-colour, tinged with green: the wings rather darker; the edges inclining to yellow: the legs and feet dusky. [Pennant.

* In his Seasons, vide Winter, line 246.

SECTION XVI.

Wren.

Motacilla troglodytes.-LINN.

THE wren may be placed among the finest of our singing birds. It continues its song throughout the winter, excepting during the frosts. It makes its nest in a very curious manner; of an oval shape, very deep, with a small hole in the middle for egress and regress; the external material is moss, within it is lined with hair and feathers. It lays from ten to eighteen eggs, and as often brings up as many young, which, as Mr. Ray observes, may be ranked among those daily miracles that we take no notice of: that it should feed such a number without passing over one, and that too in utter darkness.

The head and upper part of the body of the wren are of a deep reddish brown; above each eye is a stroke of white; the back, and coverts of the wings, and tail, are marked with slender transverse black lines; the quill feathers with bars of black and red. The throat is of a yellowish white. The belly and sides crossed with narrow dusky and pale reddish brown lines. The tail is crossed with dusky bars. [Pennant.

SECTION XVII.

Swift.

Hirundo apus.-LINN.

THIS species is the largest of our swallows; but the weight is most disproportionately small to its extent of wing of any bird; the former being scarce one ounce, the latter eighteen inches; the length near eight. The feet of this bird are so small, that the action of walking and of rising from the ground is extremely difficult; so that nature hath made it full amends, by furnishing it with ample means for an easy and continual flight. It is more on the wing than any other swallows: its flight is more rapid, and that attended with a shrill scream. It rests by clinging against some wall or other apt body; from whence Klein styles this species hirundo muraria. It breeds under the eaves of houses, in steeples, and other lofty buildings; makes its nest of grasses and

feathers; and lays only two eggs, of a white colour. It is entirely of a glossy dark sooty colour, only the chin is marked with a white spot but by being so constantly exposed to all weathers, the gloss of the plumage is lost before it retires. I cannot trace them to their winter quarters, unless in one instance of a pair found adhering by their claws, and in a torpid state, in February, 1766, under the roof of Longnor chapel, Shropshire; on being brought to a fire, they revived, and moved about the room. The feet are of a particular structure, all the toes standing forward; the least consists of only one bone; the others of an equal number, viz. two each; in which they differ from those of all other birds.

This appears in our country about fourteen days later than the sand-martin, but differs greatly in the time of its departure, retiring invariably about the tenth of August, being the first of the genus that leaves us.

The fabulous history of the Manucodiata, or bird of Paradise, is in the history of this species in great measure verified. It was believed to have no feet, to live upon the celestial dew, to float perpetually on the Indian air, and to perform all its functions in that element.

The swift actually performs what has been in these enlightened times disproved of the former: except the small time it takes in sleeping, and what it devotes to incubation, every other action is done on the wing. The materials of its nest it collects either as they are carried about by the winds, or picks them up from the surface in its sweeping flight. Its food is undeniably the insects that fill the air. Its drink is taken in transient sips from the water's surface. Even its amorous rites are performed on high. Few persons who have attended to them in a fine summer's morning, but must have seen them make their aërial courses at a great height, encircling a certain space with an easy steady motion. On a sudden they fall into each other's embraces, then drop precipitate with a loud shriek for numbers of yards. This is the critical conjuncture, and to be no more wondered at, than that insects (a familiar instance) should discharge the same duty in the same element.

These birds and swallows are inveterate enemies to hawks. The moment one appears, they attack him immediately; the swifts soon desist; but the swallows pursue and persecute those rapacious birds, till they have entirely driven them away.

Swifts delight in sultry thundery weather, and seem thence to receive fresh spirits. They fly in those times in small parties with particular violence; and as they pass near steeples, towers, or any edifice where their mates perform the office of incubation, emit a loud scream, a sort of serenade, as Mr. White supposes, to their respective females.

[Pennant.

SECTION XVIII.

On the Migration of Birds.

It is believed that many different kind of birds annually pass from one country to another, and spend the summer or the winter where it is most agreeable to them'; and that even the birds of our own island will seek the most distant southern regions of Africa, when directed by a peculiar instinct to leave their own country. It has long been an opinion pretty generally received, that swallows reside during the winter-season, in the warm southern regions; and Mr. Adanson particularly relates his having seen them at Senegal, when they were obliged to leave this country. But besides the swallow, Mr. Pennant enumerates many other birds which migrate from Britain at different times of the year, and are then to be found in other countries; after which they again leave these countries, and return to Britain. The reason of these migrations he supposes to be a defect of food at certain seasons of the year, or a want of a secure asylum from the persecution of man during the time of courtship, incubation, and nutrition. The following is his list of the migrating species.

1. Crows. Of this genus, the hooded crow migrates regularly with the woodcock. It inhabits North Britain the whole year; a few are said annually to breed on Dartmoor, in Devonshire. It breeds also in Sweden and Austria: in some of the Swedish provinces it only shifts its quarters, in others it resides throughout the year. Every ornithologist is at a loss for the summer retreat of those which visit us in such numbers in winter, and quit our country in the spring; and for the reason why a bird, whose food is such that it may be found at all seasons in this country, should leave us.

2.-Cuckoo.-Disappears early in autumn; the retreat of this and the following bird is quite unknown to us.