THROUGH THE YEAR 149 



robins which have been brought to England and 

 let out of their cages in the spring. 



I do not think the experiment has been made, 

 but if redwings were kept in an aviary in England 

 for a year or two and then released in May or June, 

 I doubt whether they would stay, as American 

 robins will stay to nest. True, the American robin 

 is said to be one of the most migratory of birds in 

 the States, but I have never had the chance to watch 

 it in its home. It can adapt itself to foreign nesting 

 places, which the redwing has never been known 

 to do. 



I think we may never know for sure how the hard- 

 and-fast rule against the redwing nesting in England 

 was made. It belongs to an extremely remote past. 

 It may have been made at a time when the redwing 

 had but lately come from the hands of its Creator. 



The redwing was evolved, like all other forms of 

 bird life, but behind that wondrous process of select- 

 ing and adapting one feels there must have been the 

 touch of an infinitely greater process. 



As for this masterful law of migration, it looks 

 much as if what was once an absolute necessity 

 for the redwing is now no need at all. The configura- 

 tion of earth and waters has changed since the 

 law made the redwings return to their summer 

 quarters north and east after a winter here. But 

 the habit of redwing migration having become fixed 

 by many thousands of years of necessity, it cannot be 

 relaxed now, even though the necessity exists no 

 more. Viewed in this light, there seems to be a sort 



