Our Summer Migrants

Abstract

AMONG the many detailed differences between the lives of country and town residents there is one which has a marked influence om the lines of thought adopted by each. The townsman as a rule finds that his numerous avocations—more numerous as they must be to enable him to survive in the severer competition for a livelihood that is associated with the extra expense involved in a non-rural life—give him but little time or need for simple physical exercise as such. He has to form his ideas of the outside world by noting, as he passes through various thoroughfares, such things as attract his attention whilst he is on his way from one duty to another. When his work is over, his great idea is rest. The animated creation, humanity excepted, is a sealed book to him. The case of the country resident is very different. Either his slow-moving occupation in the open air allows him ample opportunity for looking around him, or he is compelled to “take a walk” in order to overcome the injurious influence of a sedentary employment. The charms of scenery soon, from frequent repetition, lose much of their fascination, and the observation of the surrounding changes continually occurring in the animated world become the chief objects of attraction. Of these none are more interesting than the movements of the birds, especially of those species which, instead of taking up their continuous abode with us, only condescend to visit our shores during those seasons of the year which best suit their delicate constitutions. These, our summer migrants, form the subject of the work before us; one which will be particularly attractive, as here presented, to all who have any predilections towards ornithology or the observation of natural phenomena, both on account of the valuable information it contains and the particularly elegant way in which, both typographically and as far as binding is concerned, the book has been brought out, and Bewick's accurate engravings have been reproduced.

Our Summer Migrants.

By J. E. Harting (Bickers and Son, 1875.)