BIRDS AND THEIR VOYAGES 85 



common stock, I cannot imagine. But, believing in this 

 path of preference, I can yet believe in something 

 of song, colour, and habit outside it. The autumn 

 song of the redbreast must be outside it. The autumn 

 redbreast is not singing during grey misty hours and 

 bright hours, alike, that it may be preferred as a 

 suitor or mate. The redbreast is not merely practis- 

 ing ; Nature through her scheme of preference is not 

 making its bird sing against next spring's nesting 

 season. My strong feeling is that it is now singing 

 for the earnest pleasure of song. Unprovable, of 

 course, this is ; only a strong impression. But such 

 feelings, borne in on one with the weight of an in- 

 stinct, after years of watching, listening, and after 

 one has often turned the matter over in the mind, are 

 not without worth. I dare say that rivalry is a passion 

 that stirs the singing redbreast in autumn. But it 

 is easy to think of rivalry in song as a thing quite 

 apart from this preference of sexual choice in spring. 



What dry drab things words can be, one realises in 

 trying to describe a scene or two in a grand voyage of 

 birds. Language lends itself with little sympathy to 

 such drama as this, crowded with life and all so astir. 

 One cannot get into words any complete idea of such a 

 great bird stream as flowed for hours into the western 

 corner of England at the end of 1906. It is only 

 possible to record a few scattered facts and impres- 

 sions : I feel this, though I happened to be right 



