EN ROUTE 



first by batches of tens, then hundreds and, 

 though my calculation was necessarily very im- 

 perfect, I can confidently assert that thousands 

 and thousands passed my way as I gazed. 



When the sky was once more clear I withdrew 

 from my window only to hear, a moment or so 

 later, another sound as of a torrent and to see a 

 migrating company of thousands of grackles. 

 Four of these enormous detachments passed in, 

 perhaps, eight or ten minutes; the first somewhat 

 the largest, the remaining three in slightly dimin- 

 ishing ratios. 



But to see detachments of the great south- 

 ward-wending feathered procession is now an 

 every-day occurrence. " Night and day, week 

 days and Sundays, they will be flying; now singly 

 or in little groups, and flitting from one wood or 

 pasture to another, now in great companies, and 

 with protracted all-day or all-night flights. Could 

 one ask a better stimulus for his imagination than 

 the annual southing of this mighty host? Each 

 member of it knows his own time and his own 

 course. On such a day the snipe will be in such 

 a meadow and the golden plover in such a field. 

 Some no doubt will lose their way. Numbers un- 

 counted will perish by storm and flood ; numbers 



[59] 



