THE WOOD-WREN 



FAR up in the dark sky, myriads of tiny 

 birds sped northward from the arid plains 

 of Africa. Ever northward, hastening to their 

 distant homes, they journeyed through the night. 

 Instinct guided them, as, since remote ages, 

 it had directed their species towards the old 

 haunts in the springtide fields and woods of 

 higher Europe. Above them shone numberless 

 stars from the transparent heavens ; beneath 

 them, now and again, flashed the lights of ships, 

 or of lonely beacons on rock or shoal, placed 

 there to guide the merchant mariners. Over 

 the night brooded the silence of utter calm, 

 broken only by the whir of many wings cleaving 

 the air, or by the distant clang of a bell-buoy 

 rocked on the waves, or by the music of the surf 

 as it washed the shelving sands and iron-bound 

 promontories that lay, indistinct, beneath the 

 rolling, drifting mists. White clouds, at intervals, 

 sailed slowly under the crescent moon, casting 

 dark shadows along the wan streak that lay on 

 the sea. Ever northward swiftly moved in dense 

 array the countless host, almost the last of the 



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