278 DAYS OUT OF DOORS. 



commenced the supplies of food, and the old nesting site 

 was reoccupied, although then a much more exposed 

 position than it was during the preceding summer. 

 Here was an association of two localities in the minds of 

 the birds, and an error of judgment, of course, in suppos- 

 ing the food supply at one point depending on the nest be- 

 ing at another. It is important to note here as usual that 

 there was not at first a single bird but a pair, and they 

 were so intimately associated as to lead any one to sup- 

 pose that they were mated on arrival. 



The same character of evidence has been noted of many 

 species, and the whole subject in its different aspects, of 

 love of locality, permanent mating, and preference of 

 winter visitants for certain spots to which they possibly 

 return season after season, loses much of its vagueness 

 and improbability when birds are studied in one locality 

 year after year for many years. 



Impressions of this kind acquired by field studies can 

 not be readily described in minute detail, but one point, 

 however, can be insisted upon dogmatically when a pair 

 of birds are studied for a season, long before the time 

 of their departure at the close of summer they will be 

 very different birds to the observer from all others of 

 their kind. It is not difficult to distinguish their indi- 

 viduality. 



Everybody, it would seem, speaks of Indian summer 

 with that glibness that should arise from positive knowl- 

 edge, but far oftener it is the outcome of positive igno- 

 rance. 



Multitudinous as are the references to the subject, 

 there are but few elaborate essays treating solely of it. 

 Indeed, it is but very recently that I have found a few of 

 these. On the other hand the various references to the 

 short-lived season are by no means harmonious state- 



