"And soon that toil shall end, Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, "He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, Will lead my steps aright." BRYANT. It is chiefly during the months of autumn that those 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 us in August, twentynine 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 of 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 our heaths and woods, or our fields, hedges, and gardens; while but a few are inhabitants of our shores, lakes, and rivers; whereas of those which visit us, at this season, to become our winter residents, there are but eight species which do not haunt the water, most of these being found on the sea-beach. The reason for this it is not difficult to understand. In winter, the food of birds becomes scarce in our hills, valleys, and forests; but it is otherwise in our 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 nature in this respect. She has sent the summer birds to southern climes, in search of the food which is ready to fail them here, while, from sterner regions, she has invited fowls of other wing, and other habits, to reap the new harvests which she 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 our British birds, 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 templehaunting 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 favourable 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 departure, 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 aërial 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 : 66 Early in the month of September 1815, that beautiful and social tribe of the feathered race, began to assemble in the neighbourhood 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 collecting 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 aërial evolutions, in many a sportive ring and airy gambol, strengthening their pinions, in their playful feats, for their long journey. A 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 sea-beach. 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. Accordingly, 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." 69 THIRD WEEK-SUNDAY. THE POWERS OF THE WORLD TO COME. He is a forlorn child indeed, on whose lip the smile of playfulness is never seen, or whose eye never beams or sparkles with cheerfulness. The catastrophe of the garden of Eden has, it is true, deprived us of the tranquil and placid enjoyments which are the result of peace of conscience, and the token of the rays of divine love shining in the soul; but still there is left a seed of hope and joy, which springs in the early portion of life, and indicates a longing after better things than the present, and a capacity of maturer felicity than is tasted now. The buoyancy of youth, and its lively aspirations, sink often into the plodding dullness of uninteresting maturer years, and the animated youth becomes the tame and cheerless man. This, however, is no argument against the truth that hopefulness and joy are strong ingredients in the human character. Their failure is the fruit of misdirected energy and efforts devoted to founding stable enjoyment on things that perish in the using. Such were the endeavours of the wealthy man, who sought entertainment in building him new and enlarged barns, leaving out of account that he must soon be required to depart from them; or, it is the result of the disappointments which a child of God encounters in himself, which lead him to cry out with Paul, "O! wretched man that I am ;" or of the horrors that he encounters in the dark places of the earth, which cause him to long after the hour when the rod of the oppressor shall be broken; or of the inconsistencies and backslidings which he finds in the church, which force him, with the Tishbite, to retire, and, in solitude and mourning for the glory of God, to wish to close his eyes for ever upon this scene of inconsistency and imperfection. It is because he is ca |