IO4 High Tide of Bird Life [FIRST WEEK 



weather, and may be found living their slow, sluggish 

 life until late in the fall. In eggs, cocoons, discarded 

 bird's-nests, in earthen burrows, or in the mud at the 

 bottom of pond or stream, all these creatures have spent 

 the winter near where we find them in the spring. But 

 birds are like creatures of another world; and, although in 

 every summer's walk we may see turtles, birds, butterflies, 

 and chipmunks, all interweaving their life paths across 

 one another's haunts, yet the power of extended flight 

 and the wonderful habit of continental migration set 

 birds apart from all other living creatures. A bird dur- 

 ing its lifetime has almost twice the conscious existence 

 of, say, a snake or any hibernating mammal. And now 

 in early May, when the creatures of the woods and 

 fields have only recently opened their sleepy eyes and 

 stretched their thin forms, there comes the great world- 

 wide army of the birds, whose bright eyes peer at us from 

 tree, thicket, and field, whose brilliant feathers and sweet 

 songs bring summer with a leap the height of the grand 

 symphony, of which the vernal peeping of the frogs and the 

 squirrels' chatter were only the first notes of the prelude. 



Tantalus-like is the condition of the amateur bird-lover, 

 who, book in hand, vainly endeavours to identify the count- 

 less beautiful forms which appear in such vast numbers, 

 linger a few days and then disappear, passing on to the 

 northward, but leaving behind a goodly assemblage which 

 spends the summer and gives abundant opportunity for 

 study during the succeeding months. In May it is the 

 migrants which we should watch, and listen to, and " ogle " 

 with our opera glasses. Like many other evanescent things, 



