faint melodious honk is an Orphean strain drawing 

 irresistibly. 



A sort of noble madness seizes the birds in the 

 spring, so that an exodus of inconceivable extent 

 takes place toward the North, as though the Pole 

 were a magnet to them. There is a suggestion of 

 epic splendor in this vast impulse, this flight of 

 the feathered tribes of the earth. We may well 

 ask the bobolink, What news from Brazil? and 

 the returning plover, What of the Frozen Sea? 

 What bird-memories do they cherish of these re- 

 mote regions? It casts a halo of romance about 

 them, that they should thus be at home in lands 

 that may perhaps remain ever unvisited by us. 



As if actuated by a sublime faith, in the midst 

 of plenty they arise and depart, drawn ever to 

 the remote solitudes to rear their young, like 

 those citizens who return to their own country 

 that their children may be born in the Fatherland. 

 I do not know if our affinity is greater with the 

 bob-white and the ruffed grouse, which hear no 

 call to depart, or with these nomads of the earth, 

 In the coldest weather, redpolls, crossbills and 

 snow-buntings come to us as to a land of plenty. 

 This is near enough the equator for these hardy 



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