WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



the birds to seek our milder latitudes, than the 

 inability to obtain food when snow buries the 

 seed-bearing weeds and sends the smaller animals 

 to their hibernacula, and the increasing darkness 

 of the long arctic night shuts out from view what 

 the snow has not covered. All birds — or almost 

 all — on their southward migration, fly at night, 

 resting during the day. We have the most abun- 

 dant evidence of this; and it has occurred to me 

 that possibly it is the deepening darkness of high 

 latitudes which first warns them off; that the 

 natural recurrence of night seems to them like 

 being overtaken by the darkness which they 

 thought they had left behind, but which they must 

 again flee; that, therefore, they keep upon the 

 wing until each morning's light, supposing that 

 they have thus again and again outstripped the 

 pursuing gloom, until they reach a region of abun- 

 dant food, and perhaps learn wisdom from its 

 resident birds. 1 will confess, however, that this 

 theory is more fanciful than philosophical. 



Whatever the motive, no sooner has the crowd 

 of autumnal migrants, with rustling wrings and 

 faint voices, swept through our woods- -slowly 

 during the long, mellow October days, when the 

 earth seems to stand still and the seasons to be in 



48 



