WINGED VOYAGERS. 83 
trill little snatches of song, inure themselves to 
flight by longer or shorter excursions about the 
country, and then join the northward procession 
en route for their breeding-haunts in British Amer- 
ica. With regret I bid them adieu, but find com- 
pensation in the knowledge that their places will 
be supplied by a brilliant company of summer 
residents. 
One of the strangest features of migration is the 
fact that a bird will sometimes make the voyage 
from north to south, and wce versa —or a part of 
the voyage — alone, at least as far as companionship 
with individuals of its own kind is concerned. 
Whether this is done advertently or inadvertently I 
am unable to say, but the fact cannot be disputed. 
In the spring of 1892, as noted in another chapter, 
a hooded warbler was flitting about a gravel bank in 
a wooded hollow, and although I scoured the coun- 
try for miles around day after day, I never met 
another bird of this species. The little Apollo in 
feathers was so gentle and familiar that surely his 
mates would not have escaped my notice had there 
been any in the neighborhood. Why he preferred 
to travel alone, or in company with other species 
rather than his own kin, might be an interesting 
problem in avian psychology. A little farther down 
the glen a single mourning warbler was also seen at 
almost the same date. His companions had prob- 
ably wished him don voyage, and left him to strike 
out in an independent course through the trackless 
ocean of air. 
