2 PROLOGUE 



fade from sight, an orderly V heading into the 

 north, into darkness, into storm. For Yorkshire is 

 not for them. For them it is the bleak face of Spitz- 

 bergen with its ice-bound lagoons, its snow-covered 

 cliffs and precipices, its ocean crossing, its hazards, 

 its hidden perils. No aviator's instruments are 

 theirs; no navigator's compass can help them. But 

 what of that? Though they fly by night, though 

 they encounter deterring storm or tempting moor- 

 land or leagues of ice-flecked ocean, only a few 

 more days and they, too, will be breeding, but a thou- 

 sand miles away. They will arrive upon schedule 

 and according to ordinance, as thousands of their 

 generations have done before them. 



The structure of the atom, the birth of a child, 

 relativity, the tunnelling of a mountain, the broad- 

 casting of messages through the ether from conti- 

 nent to continent, such things we understand. Or 

 we think we do. 



But the annual, the precise, the infallible return 

 of migrating wild fowl? 



It is autumn in Alberta. A tang is in the sunlit 

 air. The poplars and birches are brilliant reds and 

 oranges and yellows. The placid lake before us is a 

 deep, sparkling blue. Even the broad mudflats 

 appear to be shimmering with color. And certain it 



