WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



males, with a neglect of parental duties otherwise 

 inexcusable, often forsake their homes long be- 

 fore their offspring are able to accompany them, 

 and begin to wend their way southward, loafing 

 along by easy stages and enjoying life in bach- 

 elor companies as if no such a thing as responsi- 

 bility existed. 



This impulse does not seem to depend upon lat- 

 itude or weather or the age of the young. Our 

 own summer birds have largely left us long before 

 mild weather ends, several species disappearing 

 almost wholly from the Hudson Valley by the end 

 of August, while their close relatives, or even breth- 

 ren of the same species, are still lingering in the 

 valley of the Yukon (where numbers begin their de- 

 parture by descending to the warmer coast), and 

 about Hudson Bay, until the first frosts remind 

 them, in mid-September, that they must be off. 

 Hence the arctic breeders are among the latest to 

 pass by us in the fall, as they were among the 

 earliest to go northward in the spring. These 

 come at last with a rush, making our half-deserted 

 woods populous again, at the end of September, 

 with strangers hurrying south. 



Snipe, sand-pipers, and plovers gather in chat- 

 tering bands and dart away in the dusk to feed- 



io6 



