178 THE HOME OF A BIRD 



species after the nesting season, not to mention the 

 improbability of their continuing together in the 

 press of migration, and at a time when individual 

 preferences are little in evidence among birds 

 generally. It is, therefore, also probable that after 

 having lived separately during their winter exile, 

 they return separately to the old spot. Whether or 

 not they do this by an alleged " sense of direction " 

 (which explains nothing) or by the recognition of 

 landmarks (which is memory), it seems improbable, 

 from what we know of the exercise of memory in 

 birds, that they ever have in mind any such image 

 of the old home as operates so powerfully upon the 

 human wanderer returning again to his own place. 

 It would seem, rather, that the return is at first 

 undertaken through a purely general racial impulse ; 

 but that as each bird proceeds, the object of its 

 journeying becomes more and more particularised 

 as it picks out by association of ideas its own path 

 among objects which, when seen, it recognises as 

 points in the track of its former flights. Only when 

 it arrives at last among the old surroundings of its 

 nesting-place does the bird enter again fully upon a 

 separate, individual life. 



Those who have witnessed this home-coming know 

 what extravagance of joy it calls forth, the wild 

 dashings to and fro along the old courses, the excited 

 cries that accompany them. More imposing still is 

 the sight of bands of migrants coming in from their 

 long > journey over the sea. Only recently I 

 witnessed such a home-coming. I was out before 

 sunrise, and a low mist covered the land, as it had 

 covered a great part of the country for two days 



