SIGNS OF AUTUMN 227 



have driven the bird so early from his snug retreat 

 in a thicket ? Did the prowling stoat rustle near ; 

 or did an owl startle him ? Probably neither. 

 But last evening, when the mists began to rise, he 

 left the accustomed nook, and, impelled by a 

 powerful instinct, commenced a long migration 

 over the pathless landscape, and directed his 

 course, with the accuracy of a human navigator, 

 to the South. It is strange indeed that a bird so 

 essentially diurnal as a thrush should undertake a 

 night-journey, guided only by the cries of its 

 fellow-travellers, and in many cases not even by 

 that, but by an instinct that lies dormant through 

 the greater part of a year. This wanderer may 

 have flown two or three hundred miles since 

 sunset. What fatigues, what terrors, has he 

 endured! How his heart must have throbbed 

 when a great owl loomed large against the mist ! 

 How scared he must have been when on nearing 

 a town he saw beneath him a galaxy of stars, 

 more bright than those above, and there welled up 

 the discordant roar of civilisation ! But he has 

 survived it all, and the grey light tells that day will 

 soon bring safety and rest. 



