WILD CREATURES OF GARDEN AND HEDGEROW 



gooseberry bushes, and hunting the rows of 

 peas from end to end, but the autumn was 

 coming, so one day they vanished, no doubt 

 to travel south with other birds, to places 

 where the winter is mild enough for little 

 insect-eating birds to live in comfort. We 

 may well wonder how such tiny creatures 

 manage not only to fly for such long distances, 

 but to find their ways. In many cases, for 

 instance that of the cuckoo, the old birds leave 

 for the Continent a month or more before the 

 young ones, so there cannot be any question of 

 the youngsters being shown the way by their 

 parents. Some people say that the birds 

 simply drift south before the cold northerly 

 winds, which may certainly have something to 

 do with it, but not everything, for on the return 

 migration in the spring birds often arrive in 

 the teeth of a north-easterly wind. The usual 

 answer, that the whole thing is a matter of 

 instinct, really is no answer at all, for we want 

 to know how instinct works and how it tells 

 the birds what to do and which way to go ! 

 The untaught knowledge that so many birds 

 have, of how to find their way across hundreds 

 of miles of sea and land, is one of the most 

 marvellous of the many marvellous things in 

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