settled slowly toward the swamp, and then rose again at the direction of 

 their leader, who doubtless said, "No rest nor forage here, but I know of a 

 corn-field beyond." 



I put these ten birds down as geese indeed, for forgetting the warmth 

 and food plenty in the South, and for trusting for a living to the poor pick- 

 ings of a frozen, storm-swept country. In a few moments I found there were 

 other geese. A second V-shaped flock of thirteen individuals passed over 

 in the wake of the leading ten. Apparently there was some trouble in the 

 second group, for the birds kept changing sides ; the two immediately behind 

 the leader moved one in the place of the other, and then the maneuver was 

 repeated at the middle of the gathering, and then at the extreme rear. This 

 continued for some time, and there came into my mind the irresistible c(3n- 

 clusion that the old gray gander leader was telling his followers that five 

 birds on one side and seven on the other of the V was an uncouth flying 

 order, and that in trying to get one bird to change over, his orders were so 

 misunderstood that a general mix-up resulted. Finally, however, before the 

 flock was lost to sight, the old fellow succeeded in getting things straight- 

 ened out. 



A man in a brickyard near the swamp said that the geese were coming 

 from the lake because a storm was brewing. There was no storm for a week, 

 however. The same man said that he had seen a thousand geese "a few days 

 before." Pinned down, however, he admitted that the "few days before" was 

 in November. 



The bluffs against which the waves of Lake Michigan beat just north of 

 Chicago are cut by deep ravines. In the summer these ravines are thickly 

 tenanted by birds. All through June they ring with the notes of the rose- 

 breasted grosbeak, the wood thrush and the brown thrasher. I determined 

 one winter morning, in the same month as that of my Skokie trip, though in 

 another year, to find out what one of these great gullies held in winter that 

 was of interest to a bird lover. The weather conditions of the night before 

 and of the early morning were unusual for midwinter. At midnight the air 

 was warm and heavy ; at five o'clock in the morning there was a thunder- 

 storm raging which would not have been out of place in late April. The ther- 

 mometer marked seventy degrees, and the lightning played through a heavy 

 downfall of rain. At seven o'clock there were signs of clearing. The sun 

 peeped out through a break in a cloud bank that hung low over Michigan. An 

 hour later as I stood on the lake shore ready to begin the threading of the 

 ravine, there was no longer any rain, and the air was beginning to take on 

 a crispness. 



The first glimpse of bird life came just before I turned inland. The ad- 

 vance guard of what became a great army of gulls crossed the horizon. They 

 were herring gulls, and in color were in keeping with the gray day. A flock 

 of ducks flew rapidly along below the gulls and parallel to the shore line. 



12 



