The Birds' Calendar 



convenience of going where they are. Accord- 

 ing to nature's laws they pay us a flying visit 

 once or twice a year, and never expect the call 

 to be returned. We must look for some ur- 

 gently impelling motive for these regular, in- 

 variable, and immense journeys undertaken so 

 often by these creatures. We can hardly sup- 

 pose that a bird that spends the summer in 

 Labrador or Alaska goes down to Central Amer- 

 ica in the fall and back again in the spring just 

 for the pure fun of it. 



Shakespeare's allusion to a bird that is with 

 us in the midst of the year as 



" This guest of summer," 



is a poetic license. At that season every bird 

 is in its home, and not a guest anywhere. For 

 the true home of a bird must be regarded as 

 the place where it nests and sings. If a bird 

 be found in the Arctic zone during the sing- 

 ing and breeding season, that is surely its 

 heart's home, however far it may travel south- 

 ward in the later months to find food, or to 

 avoid the severity of winter's cold. When we 

 consider what strong local attachments they 

 manifest, causing them not only to return, 

 hundreds and thousands of miles to the very 



So 



