MIGRATION 



have swung so low that birds were frightened from 

 their roosts in the tree-tops ; a glow now and then 

 through the fog ceiling made it seem as if I were 

 contour flying blindly; I have swung around and 

 around a cluster of lights peering vainly for hint of 

 a landing place. Finally, in deadly fear, I have 

 climbed to temporary safety, gambled the low tide 

 in my fuel tanks against the dawn, and won by a 

 glimmer. Only because of this do I feel worthy of 

 writing something about the migration of birds. 



The real dramatic phase of migration is the ulti- 

 mate object, enhanced by the fact that earthly crea- 

 tures become helpless pawns when once this fateful 

 hysteria claims them. With many living beings mi- 

 gration operates as a saver of life; to legions of 

 others it is a forced march to certain death. 



When a hawk or wild goose passes overhead, my 

 pet monkey, Chiriqui, ducks in fear or dives into his 

 house. A migrant bird is to him merely a stimulus to 

 inherited memory of the deadly swoop of harpy 

 eagles. To our n*^ great-granduncles — the cave- 

 men — the coming of swallows must have meant no 

 more than buzzing flies — possibly not so much. In 

 historical times I seem to associate the first con- 

 scious thought of migrating birds with astrologers 

 and the absence of sloping roofs. From the earliest 

 times in the Far East men liked to sleep or to study 

 the stars on the flat tops of their houses, and many 

 an abstruse calculation of star portents of war or 

 prophets must have been interrupted by the loud 

 chirps of passing birds. Even this I have verified 



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