WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



prey, and others, that obtain their food on the 

 wing, do not travel by night, but proceed wholly 

 in the daytime, since they can forage as they fly. 

 It is the birds that must hunt in the bushes for in- 

 sects or fruit, must dig in old wood for grubs, or 

 scratch the ground or probe in the mud or search 

 the waters for their daily bread, that need daylight 

 for this purpose more than for travelling. As 

 evening approaches a careful observer at favorable 

 points will see them gathering in little bands, or 

 in great flocks, according to their habit, and then 

 rising straight up to a considerable height before 

 bearing away on their course. 



In clear nights, and especially in moonlit ones, 

 they fly high and far, reading the map of their 

 route beneath them almost as well as by day, 

 and we see or hear little of them. But when the 

 nights are dark and misty, yet not stormy enough 

 to prevent them attempting to get forward, the 

 birds skim low over the tree-tops and houses, feel- 

 ing their way from point to point, and often 

 getting so confused that they quit altogether, and, 

 dropping down anywhere, wait for a better time. 

 Such nights come more often in the fall than in 

 the spring, and no one who is abroad in a quiet, 

 rural place on a warm, cloudy evening of Septem- 



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