OCTOBER. 



WELCOME WITH A SHOT-GUN. 



October 2. By October the birds' tourist season 

 for the autumn is in full swing, and the shore gunners 

 on our eastern coasts anxiously scan the direction of 

 the wind each day. Just as the British tripper to the 

 Continent in his summer holiday season finds that 

 hotel-keepers and waiters have been studying steam- 

 ship and railway charts in order to be ready to 

 receive him with bland smiles and attractive tariffs, 

 so the foreign bird, migrating in autumn, finds that 

 English gunners have been studying the winds his 

 only means of distant travel and are waiting all 

 along the shore line to welcome him with breech- 

 loader and punt-gun. If the old-fashioned idea that 

 flocks of migrating birds were " personally con- 

 ducted," like Cook's tourists, by experienced indi- 

 viduals who have made the journey before, were 

 correct, one could imagine the cicerone of a party of 

 migrants, winging their way high over the surging 

 foam, piping to his inexperienced followers, " There 

 is England that ragged, dark line on the horizon : 

 now shut your eyes, and fly for all you are worth ! " 

 Bang ! Bang ! Bang ! " Well, how many of us 

 got through this time ? " 



