BIRDS AND THEIR VOYAGES 91 



I mean by saying no surnmoner, no avant-courier, 

 no leader or follower had a place in the great train. 

 True, this was not one of the set migrations which 

 are features in the lives of birds of passage. It 

 was due to a change of weather, a sudden pressure 

 of snow and frost scarcity of food set this train 

 moving. But no doubt what applies to the irregular 

 applies to the regular migration of birds : in neither 

 case is there anything like human order and method. 

 Migration is a sort of anarchy. No bird rules bird. 

 Each goes as it pleases. 



Nor do I believe that the route is first picked out 

 by certain older birds, wise above their fellows. To 

 assume this is to humanise birds. It is a tempting 

 light in which to look at migration. It helps one over 

 that problem, " How do the birds know their way ? " 

 But there are only a very few of the great questions 

 of life the answers to which it is worth while to take 

 for granted. And in any case it is idle to evade a 

 hard question, such as migration, by enduing the bird 

 with the method and mind of a man. Wild creatures 

 have minds and methods, beautiful often, wondrously 

 efficient, complex, refined; but, in these matters of 

 flocks and societies and voyages, the machinery of 

 their mind and method does not resemble the human 

 machinery. 



No division of labours, no allotment of duties, have 

 given to the starling flock its marvellous mathe- 

 matical precision in aerial exercises. No authority in 



