10 THE CLERK OF THE WOODS 



have before now felt something like relief 

 at its conclusion. Now, then, I have said, 

 the birds that are here will stay for at least 

 a month or two, and life may be lived a little 

 more at leisure. 



This year, 1 by all the accounts that reach 

 me, the migration has been of extraordinary 

 fullness. Only last night a man took a seat 

 by me in an electric car and said, what for 

 substance I have heard from many others, 

 that he and his family, who live in a desir- 

 ably secluded, woody spot, had never before 

 seen so many birds, especially so many war- 

 blers. 



How wiser men than myself explain this 

 unusual state of things I do not know. To 

 me it seems likely that the unseasonable 

 cold weather caught the first large influx of 

 May birds in our latitude, and held them 

 here while succeeding waves came falling in 

 behind them. The current was dammed, 

 so to speak, and of course the waters rose. 



Some persons, I hear, had strange ex- 

 periences. I am told of one man who picked 

 a black-throated blue warbler from a bush, 

 1 1900. 



