THE RIDDLE OF MIGRATION 



PROLOGUE 



The sun has set. Rifts of gold and crimson in the 

 western sky glow through a heavy pall of cloud 

 that shrouds the moorlands in a sullen canopy of 

 pending storm. Around us the listless silence is fit- 

 fully punctuated, now by wail of Curlew calling to 

 its partner, now by plaintive mew of incubating 

 Plover or the staccato keking of the mated Merlin. 

 Half a mile away, from the reservoir at the base of 

 the fell on which we are seated, rises the murmur 

 of a gaggle of pink-footed Geese. They are feeding. 

 The wildness and isolation of the rugged moors, the 

 crags and wind-swept fells, the munificence of this 

 bountiful wilderness, will surely persuade them that 

 here they too, with Curlew and Peewit, Sandpiper 

 and Wild Duck, Grouse and Raven, can find a 

 paradise for the rearing of their young. Surely they 

 will stay. They must stay. But as the darkness 

 deepens, the murmur increases to an excited cack- 

 ling, the flock shifts uneasily back and forth and in 

 a minute we hear the pounding of pinions on the 

 glassy surface of the lake. We see them rising, up 

 and up, at first a straggling line grotesquely mir- 

 rored on the rippled water beneath ; but before they 



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