156 HOMING WITH THE BIRDS 



a first moulting would not resemble either of the 

 parents, it can readily be understood how be- 

 wildered I, or any other field worker, would have 

 been. The birds seemed to wait on the wire and 

 bushes for several minutes, while numbers of their 

 kind joined them from small bushes over the field 

 and the adjoining woods. The whole flock seemed 

 excited, on high nervous tension, and constantly 

 chirped and chattered. In a short time, as one 

 bird they took wing, rising higher than I ever had 

 seen warblers fly about the business of living, and 

 headed due south. As a rare and unusual sight 

 I can think of no experience in field work to surpass 

 the beauty of this picture. 



In the spring of 1918 at the Cabin, north, on a 

 warm May Sabbath morning, with occasional 

 showers falling, the cook came to ask me to go 

 to the back porch. All of the warblers described 

 in the previous instance had returned to the North 

 in a body, and having just landed in the dense 

 tangles of vines climbing over the high growth 

 above the spring, they paused to hold a Sabbath 

 service of thanksgiving for their safe arrival. 

 For several hours — until midafternoon, in fact — 

 a rolling, trilling volume of sound ascended from 

 the region of the spring. Then it ceased, and 

 after that not more than a dozen could be heard 

 at one time. 



Two other instances of particularly exquisite 

 things I have seen in nature occurred on my own 



