Taverner and Swales — On Point Pelee Birds. 81 



down the other side hi hms easy curves, with n swin,:^inK turn u(jw 

 to this side aud uow to that as if deflected hy easily avoidable ob- 

 stacles, invisible to us. Once in a while a Chiuriiey Swift came 

 Inisily by on rapidly beating wings like a great sphinx moth. All 

 were making southward and away over the lake. 



After it had been light for about half an hour, an occasional Mar- 

 tin appeared on the landward horizon, grew in apparent size, imtil 

 by the refraction of the morning mists it seemed as large as a small 

 hawk, passed us, and was swallowed up in the fog over the water on 

 the farther side. They came oftener and oftener, until there was a 

 steady stream of them coming down the Point, not in regularly or- 

 ganized tiocks, but singly, and in ones and twos and half dozens. 

 Standing there in the early morning half light it was most impres- 

 sive. The mist lay below us aud covered the ground with soft dia- 

 phanous billows. Throiigh it the sharp conical red cedars pushed up 

 half their length, sharp and clear cut in the foreground, but growing 

 dimmer in the distance until they melted away into the vague hori- 

 zon. The sky was leaden in color. Through the nust came the Martins. 

 We were elevated to their plane of flight and were alone with them. 

 On they came, bii'd after bird, on their strong bowed wings, out of 

 the nebulous north, cutting strong and black against the neutral 

 background. Without hurry or haste, calm, dignified and determined, 

 they held a true course and swerved neither to one side or the other. 

 With no apparent concerted action, but as if each one was filled with 

 a like but independent impulse of migration and was urged on and 

 on, south, ever south, by an inward monitor that ruled supreme. 



It was only a flight of n)igrating Martins, and tame enough in 

 the telling, but the reality was impressive indeed. The empty gray- 

 ness of the vacant landscape and the succession of impassionate 

 birds, all hastening under a mysterious impulse from a region of 

 unknown extent to the north and converging to this one little spit of 

 sand projecting out into the waters, on their way to a softer climate, 

 in anticipation of colder times as yet in the future. It gave 

 the impression of a never-ending procession passing from one un- 

 known to another. Summer was past, winter was coming, the sea- 

 son was advancing and could be no more retarded than the order of 

 the stars could be altered. Word had gone forth and had been re- 

 ceived by each and every individual. No Fiery Cross was necessary — 

 Nature had willed it, and that was sufficient, the clans obeyed and it 

 had come to pass. Imagination reached forth and saw them gather- 

 ing from the whole mysterious northland. Some were working down 

 the rugged shores of Georgian Bay, passing from headland to head- 

 land or island to island ; others passing over the scorched sand plains 

 of northern Michigan, and all were headed in the same general di- 

 rection and, with the same deliberate, steady and unhurried flight, 

 the migrations were proceeding as inevitably as fate. 



