THE HOME OF A BIRD 179 



previously. But a light wind had begun to play from 

 the south-east, driving a wedge of blue sky through 

 the grey mist. And as I went I heard the sound of 

 many voices singing, as it seemed, a great way off. 

 As the singing was quite unlike that of any of the 

 few home-birds then vocal I was for a while per- 

 plexed, looking every way but up. At last I descried 

 far up through the rift in the mist a great band of 

 birds against the sky ; and the low sun struck up, 

 lighting the white under-parts and making them" 

 clearly visible through the field-glass. By the stroke 

 of the wings I recognised the Skylark, and as the 

 birds streamed along, flock succeeding flock, a 

 continuous shrill prattle rained down to earth. All 

 night the birds had fared above the mist-enshrouded 

 earth, but that dividing of the mist that became for 

 me a vision of blue sky, was for them a vision of 

 green earth. And as I thought of the long way- 

 faring and perils past, the sound of so many sweet 

 voices singing together high in heaven seemed like 

 the song of a great deliverance. And if any find it 

 strange that, in the breadth and loneliness of day- 

 break, I should catch, as it were, an inner echo in 

 myself of the "In exitu Israel" of the great singer 

 who passed through that middle world where spirits 

 of men in bondage await release, let them dismiss the 

 thought. 



Sterner proof that birds, like men, have but one 

 country is afforded by the history of exterminated 

 species. Some of these, once common to the 

 continent of Europe and the British Isles, have been 

 extirpated from the latter. Birds of the same species 

 may come from other lands to winter with us, the 



