CONCLUSION 237 



Arctic Circle and winter in Argentina. Some of 

 the plovers travel the entire length of the American 

 land mass every summer, from Patagonia to the 

 Arctic Circle, in order to lay three or four pale- 

 green eggs, and see them turn to birdlings by the 

 shores of the Hudson Sea. Many animals have 

 the power to foretell storms, and man, though he 

 can weigh worlds, is ever glad to profit by their 

 superior sense. When herons fly high above the 

 clouds, when sea-birds dip and sport in the water 

 and the bittern booms from the marshes, when 

 swallows fly low and the sow repairs her bed, 

 when horses scamper and cattle sniff the air, 

 when ravens beat the air with their wings, make 

 noises, and flock together, when the swan raises 

 her eggs by additions to her nest and the prairie- 

 dog scratches the dirt up around its hole, when 

 beetles are not found in the air and caterpillars 

 mass in their webs, when bees remain near their 

 hives and ants carry their eggs to their innermost 

 abodes, when frogs croak more loudly from their 

 watery retreats and fishes seek the safety of the 

 unharried deeps look out for foul weather ! Man 

 has not the sweetness of the song-sparrow, the 

 innocence of the fawn, nor the high relative brain 

 capacity of the tomtit and the fice. 



Many animals have powers by which they are 

 able to act in concert at times, vast numbers of 

 them moving in unison over immense areas by 

 signals or intuitions which man can neither 

 imitate nor understand. Such are the mysterious 

 migrations of the Norway lemming and of many 



