THE PASSING OF THE BIRDS. 195 



that makes life worth having. How can 

 any New Englander imagine that he has ex- 

 hausted the possibilities of existence so long 

 as he has never seen the Lincoln finch and 

 the Cape May warbler? 



But "I speak as a fool." Our happiness, 

 if we are bird-lovers indeed, waits not upon 

 novelties and rarities. All such exceptional 

 bits of private good fortune let the Fates 

 send or withhold as they will. The grand 

 spectacle itself will not fail us. Even now, 

 through all the northern country, the pro- 

 cession is getting under way. For the next 

 three months it will be passing, millions 

 upon millions : warblers, sparrows, thrushes, 

 vireos, blackbirds, flycatchers, wrens, king- 

 lets, woodpeckers, swallows, humming-birds, 

 hawks ; with sandpipers, plovers, ducks and 

 geese, gulls, and who knows how many more ? 

 Night and day, week days and Sundays, 

 they will be flying : now singly or in little 

 groups, and flitting from one wood or pas- 

 ture to another; now in great companies, 

 and with protracted all-day or all-night 

 flights. Who could ask a better stimulus 

 for his imagination than the annual southing 

 of this mighty host? Each member of it 



