saved by a most unusual occurrence, and we 
must start right now to learn about it. 
Il 
Ir was now well along in the summer, and 
certain changes in the bird-life were beginning to 
take place. The one that the people in Mont- 
clair noticed especially was the flocking of black-. 
birds in the evening. They gathered to roost 
in the shade trees on one of the streets in such 
numbers that people began to call them a nui- 
sance. Every evening they would come in 
from the fields, many of them flying over the 
old orchard and uttering a hoarse “‘cluck”’ as 
they passed. With them came starlings and 
sometimes a few robins. They flocked in the 
trees by hundreds and thousands, and the 
people who lived near by felt that in some way 
they must get rid of them. 
When the birds had settled to roost, boys went 
up into the trees with long poles and began to 
rattle the limbs and shake the leaves to frighten 
the birds away. The only. effect this had was 
to cause some of the black visitors to move on to 
42 
