70 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



tion of the stars and other signs, his deductive reason, 

 and his mechanical reference to the stored-up wisdom 

 of a thousand generations has scarcely a glimmering 

 of the faculty we call instinct in lower creatures, or 

 intuition in our talk of future human acquirements. 

 Knowing nothing of the homing faculty, we are eager 

 to deny its existence, in spite of almost overwhelming 

 evidence. We grant the carrier-pigeon enormous 

 powers of eyesight in order to deny it a psychological 

 excellence that we do not possess. Our summer 

 migrants confound even this far-fetched explanation 

 by sometimes crossing five hundred miles of sea, and 

 by usually choosing the night for their migrations. 



It is the old story of the single accomplishment 

 proving better than a whole bag of tricks. The 

 skilled navigator in possession of all the resources of 

 science goes miles out of his way in order to cast his 

 ship on the rocks, while the tiny gold-crested wren 

 crosses seas and continents straight to the tree where 

 its nest was slung twelve months ago. The feat is a 

 triumph of the single aim. The whole being of the 

 bird is concentrated on this purpose, which reason 

 would tell it at once was impossible. It is suddenly 

 endowed with a faith that removes mountains, and 

 makes seas as though they were not. 



Any one who knew the physical constitution of the 

 bird and no more would say that for nine out of ten 

 of them an uninterrupted journey of a hundred miles 

 was impossible. The feat of migration is so stupend- 

 ous that we try to believe that the rarity of the air in 

 the higher regions gives the birds an advantage ; 

 some daring spirits go so far as to say that they do 

 but go aloft and wait till the world has brought the 



