BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 283 



may spend an hour or so in their beloved aerial 

 exercises. 



To anyone who witnesses these gatherings and 

 sees the birds rising from time to time from the 

 wood, and appearing like a big black cloud in 

 the sky, growing lighter and darker alternately as 

 the birds scatter wide or mass themselves in a 

 closer formation, until after wheeling about for 

 some minutes they pour back into the trees; and 

 who listens to the noise they make, as of a high 

 wind in the wood, composed, as it is, of an in- 

 finity of individual voices, it must seem incredible 

 that all these birds can keep in pairs. For how 

 could any couple hold together in such circum- 

 stances, or when separated ever meet again in 

 such a multitude, or, should they ever meet by 

 chance, how recognize one another when all are 

 exactly alike in size, shape, colour and voice? 



They can, and certainly do, keep together, and 

 when forced apart as, when pursued by a hawk, 

 they scatter in all directions, they can quickly find 

 one another again. They can do it because of 

 their perfect discipline, or instinct, or the perfec- 

 tion of the system they follow during their 

 autumn and winter wanderings and migrations. 



