HOW THE BIRDS KNOW 327 



thousand miles, often farther, but once they have 

 arrived at their destination they will allow them- 

 selves to be picked up by hand and killed, but 

 they will noT take wing until again moved by 

 the migratory impulse. When they prove that 

 they can fly by having made the long migration, 

 why it is that they will not fly when plume 

 hunters are gathering them up and peeling the 

 skin from throat to vent on the living birds, is one 

 of the secrets of nature which is difficult to 

 learn. 



Very few birds — some cardinals, for example — 

 are what might be called walking migrants. They 

 change their locations day by day through easy 

 stages of flight from wood to wood ; and again some 

 specimens have been seen collecting in very small 

 flocks and starting their southern migration much 

 in the manner of other birds. When our birds of 

 winter have gone farther south, there come to us 

 from their extreme northern range such birds as the 

 titmouse, song sparrow, cardinal, jay, nut-hatch, 

 flicker, sap-sucker, crow, and sparrow hawk. I 

 am sure that our mated owls remain, and I think 

 our quail do also. Owls that have not mated and 

 found a satisfactory home may change with the 

 seasons until they pair and settle. It is absolutely 

 certain that the birds farther north come as far 

 south as my location at least in winter, for I have 

 seen snow buntings in the woods back of the Cabin, 

 north ; and in one instance there was brought to our 



