BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 21 



we cannot of course tell ; but they have learned by experience 

 that It means that land is very near, and so they all swerve 

 in their course to pass through its rays. And those who keep 

 the lighthouses tell us of the streams of birds that pass, 

 flashing white for an instant in the glare of the lamp and 

 then disappearing, and of still larger companies that fly 

 overhead and out of siofht, fillinof the nieht-air with the sound 



o o o 



of rushing wings and the clamour of different voices, "feeling 

 for each other in the dark," as Bunyan says, " with words." 



" From worlds unknown 

 The birds of passage transmigrating conic ; 

 Unnumbered colonics of foreign wing 

 At Nature's summons in bold voyage steer 

 O'er the ividc ocean, through the pathless skyJ' 



Mallet. 



I had been tellino- a child about the miracle of miofration, 

 and when I had finished, she routed all my science by the 

 simplest of questions, and utterly posed me by asking : 

 " What do they do it for ?" Yes, indeed, what do they do it 

 for? or what do they do \tfor? It does not matter which 

 word we put the emphasis on : it is the same conundrum 

 always from a slightly different angle ; only another turn in the 

 maze. As the child got no reply, she helped herself to one, 



