THE DUCK 97 



rives, circles about a moment undecided, suspects 

 danger, and flies off again into the distant blue, 

 where it is soon lost to sight. Whither is it going! 

 It is going where its instinct calls it, to the solitudes 

 of the North. At the first thawing of the ice, when 

 the ground, still wet from the melting snows, begins 

 to be clothed with flowers, in fact in May or June, 

 it will reach perhaps the Faroe Islands, perhaps the 

 Orkneys or Iceland, or maybe Lapland. It is never 

 without a lively interest that I watch the flight of 

 one of these migrating flocks, better guided on its 

 audacious journey than the navigator with the aid 

 of the compass. I picture to myself the joys of 

 arrival, the common delight when the long flight 

 finally ends on the home island, the friendly land 

 where, in a mossy hollow, the red-marbled eggs will 

 presently be laid. 



"For a great many birds, and among them the 

 duck, the archipelagoes of the North are a promised 

 land, an earthly paradise. The most varied species 

 meet here from all parts of the world. What a lively 

 scene, therefore, what a festival, when nesting time 

 comes! Nowhere else is there such a reunion of 

 birds. Let me tell you the strange scene that takes 

 place then, according to travelers who have wit- 

 nessed it. 



"We are at Spitzbergen, facing some towering 

 cliffs that overlook the sea and extend back in the 

 form of receding shelves, one above another, like 

 the rows of seats in a theater. These shelves are all 

 covered with myriads of female birds sitting on their 



