MIGRATION OF SWALLOWS 333 



I admired her " fierce volubility " ; but that sudden 

 softening at the end about the blackbird's beautiful 

 voice, and that memory of her distant childhood, and 

 her wish, strange in these weary days, to have her 

 hard life to live over again, came as a surprise to me. 



In days like these, so bright and peaceful, one 

 thinks with a feeling of wonder that many of our 

 familiar birds are daily and nightly slipping away, 

 decreasing gradually in numbers, so that we scarcely 

 miss them. By the middle of September the fly- 

 catchers and several of the warblers, all but a few 

 laggards, have left us. Even the swallows begin to 

 leave us before that date. On the 8th many birds 

 were congregated at a point on the river a little 

 above the village, and on the 10th a considerable 

 migration took place. Near the end of a fine day a 

 big cloud came up from the north-west, and beneath 

 it, at a good height, the birds were seen flying down 

 the valley in a westerly direction. I went, out and 

 watched them for half-an-hour, standing on the little 

 wooden bridge that spans the stream. They went 

 by in flocks of about eighty to a couple of hundred 

 birds, flock succeeding flock at intervals of three or 

 four minutes. By the time the sun set the entire 

 sky was covered by the black cloud, and there was 

 a thick gloom on the earth; it was then some eight 

 or ten minutes after the last flock, flying high, had 

 passed twittering on its way that a rush of birds 

 came by, flying low, about on a level with my head 



