186 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



The end of summer is the top of the 

 year with the birds. Their numbers are 

 then at the full. After that, for six months 

 and more, the tide ebbs. Winter and the 

 long migratory journeys waste them like the 

 plagues of Egypt. Not more than half of 

 all that start southward ever live to come 

 back again. 



Of this every bird-lover takes sorrowful 

 account. It is part of his autumnal feeling. 

 If he sees a flock of bobolinks or of red- 

 winged blackbirds, he thinks of the South- 

 ern rice fields, where myriads of both species 

 — " rice-birds," one as much as the other — 

 will be shot without mercy. A sky fuU of 

 swallows calls up a picture of thousands 

 lying dead at once, in Florida or elsewhere, 

 after a winter storm. A September hum- 

 ming-bird leaves him wondering over its 

 approaching flight to Central America or to 

 Cuba. Will the tiny thing ever accomphsh 

 that amazing passage and find its way home 

 again to New England? Perhaps it wiU; 

 but more likely not. 



For the present, nevertheless, the birds 

 are aU in high spirits, warbling, twittering, 



