CHAPTER - XxX: 
SOUTHERN FLIGHT OF NON-DIVERS HATCHED IN 
THE UNITED STATES. 
The glorious harvest moon of September has 
dwindled away, dark nights reign supreme over 
swamp, lake and slough, a forerunner of the first 
southern flight of our tenderest warm-weather birds. 
The flowers of the lily and lotus have faded and gone, 
the blue and yellow flags are shriveled, and the heavy 
growth of aquatic plants once so hard to push through 
is scarcely visible, leaving the cool water free and 
clear. 
The bluewinged teals are getting uneasy. They 
gather upon some large body of water near their ac- 
customed grounds, and an unusual excitement pre- 
vails among them. This occurs for two or three days, 
when, about four o’clock in the afternoon, a flock will 
rise from the water and instead of going to their feed- 
ing grounds, as usual, will sweep up and down over 
its surface and alight again. These tactics the ducks 
pursue for a short time, each flock being increased 
in numbers until they have assumed a considerable 
size. Now a change occurs; instead of alighting, as 
usual, upon the water after one of their circles, they 
mount higher and higher in the air, divide into sev- 
eral flocks, each one disciplined by old birds, and travel 
southward until nightfall, when they alight upon regu- 
lar stations or sheets of water which year after year 
are selected by them. The remainder act in the same 
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