INTRODUCTORY. 



13 



" Beautiful birds of lightsome wing, 

 Glad creatures that come with the voice of spring." 



As birds migrate at night, we seldom see the 

 winged armies on the march ; but many a morning 

 have we missed the thousands that the evening 

 before crowded our bays or our woodlands. We 

 always see the brant migrate. If the weather is 

 favorable, they leave the sixth or seventh of June 

 regularly. Just before sundown the flocks become 

 unusually restless and noisy. Then, while the 

 summer sky is aglow with the setting sun, and 

 evening sheds her calm beauty over land and sea, 

 in one dense cloud the birds rise directly from 

 the bay, and, hovering over its waters at a great 

 height for a few moments, with the hoarse clamor 

 of a thousand voices, they sweep away, and are 

 soon lost in the diinness of the northern sky. 



In the early spring, during the period of mi- 

 gration, on a calm, clear night, if you take your 

 stand beneath the star -lit sky, where there is no 

 other noise to disturb, }ou will hear- the almost 

 constant fanning of wings high in the scintillating 

 heavens, as the birds sweep on silently in their 

 journey to their northern breeding grounds. 



