Bruyn's Travels into Muscovy, Perfia, &c. Vol. I. page 6. Le Bruyn was bred a limner, and has been at the pains to figure a head of one of the Samoeds in large, on a folio page, which gives every one that has feen any of the North-American people a perfect idea of them. CHAP. CHA P. II. MY good friend, the late Mr. Mark Catesby, I remember, fometime before his death, presented a paper to the Royal Society, relating to the paffage of birds, which was read at one of their meetings. This paper I have not by me, but well remember the general opinion advanced in it was, that he imagined fuch birds as were inhabitants with us only part of the year, departed from hence to inhabit fouthern countries on the other fide of the Equinoctial Line, juft of the fame degree of latitude with those they departed from on the northern fide: fuch a conjecture, at first fight, feems to be probable enough; because, in general, it is fuppofed, that during our winter season, the temperature of the weather, in the fouthern latitudes, is nearly the fame as it is with us in our fummer; and then of confequence a bird of paffage, that passes from fixty degrees of northern, to fixty degrees of fouthern latitude, will meet not only with the fame fame altitude of the fun, in both latitudes, provided the paffage is made in September or March, but with nearly the fame degree of heat. But if we confider, that there are many birds of paffage found far to the northward, in feventy degrees of latitude (where, I believe, all the fowls are birds of paffage, it not being a climate fit for their fubfiftance in winter) they must have a long way to pass, according to Mr. Catesby's notion; for feventy degrees to the Equinoctial Line, and seventy degrees again to the fouth of it, are an hundred and forty degrees, which, at our lowest computation of a degree of latitude, make eight thousand four hundred miles, which is a prodigious flight for a bird to peform in a fhort time. Birds that are conftant inhabitants between the Tropics, it is very likely, may make tranfits across the Equinoctial, to accommodate themselves with proper food at different feafons, or to avoid the inconveniency of the exceffive rains in one place, by feeking the more dry and pleasant seasons in another; but to imagine that birds who inhabit the high latitudes, either of the northern or fouthern hemispheres, fhould change their habita tions, from an extreme northern, to an extreme fouthern latitude, or vice verfa, is contrary to all. reason, and the nature of things; for birds inhabiting frigid, or temperate climates, would find themselves almoft out of their proper element, while paffing through a tract of more than forty-five degrees of the Torrid Zone, before they could arrive at their natural and cooler climates on the opposite side of the Torrid Zone; nor is there any reason at all for birds to pass from the northern to the fouthern hemifphere, in order to arrive at a place of a proper and wished for temperature; for when a bird leaves its northern fituation at the approach of winter, and advances fouthward, he arrives at some place of an equal degree of heat with that of the northern summer from whence he departed, without coming near the Equinoctial Line; fo that I fee no reafon at all to fuppose they pass from the north, across the Line, to fouthern habitations; but I think it most reasonable that they should stop when they have found a resting place in a climate of equal temperature with that from which they departed; for to suppose they go a long voyage across the Line, into far distant distant fouthern countries, is only carrying them a long journey to feek what they might find near at hand. We know that the Stork, who inhabits fome of the more northern parts of Europe in the fummer, retires in the winter no farther than Egypt, about the mouths of the Nile, which is on this fide of the Line: but according to Mr. Catesby's opinion, fhe must retire into some southern Terra Incognita; for we know of no land, on the old-world-fide of the globe, of fo high a fouthern latitude as Holland lies north, which is one of the fummer habitations of the Stork. There remains fomething yet more difficult to be cleared up in relation to the paffage of fome birds; I mean several of the short-winged water-fowl, that, during the fummer months, inhabit the northern islands of Europe; fuch as the Danish islands of Farro, and Iceland, and many others farther north, even on the coaft of Greenland. Amongst these, the most remarkable for its short wings, is my Northern Penguin, figured in plate 147 of my large work, which is a bird never supposed to be capable of any flight at all, not even fo much as to free itself from the water. There are feveral others with short |