94 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 



appropriate station a part in upper New England and 

 Canada, many about Hudson's Bay ; while not a few (water- 

 birds especially) would lead us to the very shores of Arctic 

 fjords. For them the summer is so short that ice and snow 

 start them south before we have any thought of cold weath- 

 er. On their way they pick up all the Labrador and Can- 

 ada birds, re-enforced by their young, so that an even great- 

 er army invades our woods amid the splendor of October 

 than made them ring in the exuberance of June. Then 

 our own birds catch the infection, and singly, or in squads, 

 companies, and regiments, join the great march to the sa- 

 vannas of the Gulf States, the table-lands of Central Amer- 

 ica, and on even to the jungles of the Orinoco. What a 

 wonderful perception is that which teaches them to migrate; 

 tells them just the daj^ to set out, the proper course to take, 

 and keeps them true to it over ocean and prairie, and mo- 

 notonous forests, and often in the night! That the young, 

 learning the route from the parent, remember it, would be 

 no less remarkable were it true, which it probably is not ; 

 for many species seem to go north by one route, as along 

 the coast, and return by another west of the Alleghanies, 

 or vice versa. In proceeding northward, the males go ahead 

 of the females a week or so ; returning in the fall, the males 

 again take the lead, and the young bring up the rear. Yet 



