78 BIRDS AND POETS 
in Ohio or Pennslyvania; then in New York; then 
in Canada or Michigan or Missouri. They are fol- 
lowed from point to point, and from State to State, 
by human sharks, who catch and shoot them for 
market. 
A year ago last April, the pigeons flew for two or 
three days up and down the Hudson. In long bow- 
ing lines, or else in dense masses, they moved across 
the sky. It was not the whole army, but I should 
think at least one corps of it; I had not seen such 
a flight of pigeons since my boyhood. I went up 
to the top of the house, the better to behold the 
winged procession. The day seemed memorable and 
poetic in which such sights occurred.? 
While I was looking at the pigeons, a flock of 
wild geese went by, harrowing the sky northward. 
The geese strike a deeper chord than the pigeons. 
Level and straight they go as fate to its mark. I 
cannot tell what emotions these migrating birds 
awaken in me,—the geese especially. One seldom 
sees more than a flock or two in a season, and what 
a spring token it is! The great bodies are in mo- 
tion. It is like the passage of a victorious army. 
No longer inch by inch does spring come, but these 
geese advance the standard across zones at one pull. 
How my desire goes with them; how something in 
me, wild and migratory, plumes itself and follows 
fast! 
1 This proved to be the last flight of the pigeons in the valley 
of the Hudson. The whole tribe has now (1895) been nearly ex- 
terminated by pot-hunters. The fewthat still remain appear te 
be scattered through the Northern States ia small, loose flocks. 
