WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



it is the old males that first come, and it may 

 be a week or more before any females are seen, 

 and still later before the young born the previous 

 year appear. The explanation of this probably 

 is, that the old birds, being stronger and more seri- 

 ously bent upon the object of their journey, travel 

 more rapidly than the females and youngsters. 

 All are in their newest and gayest coats. 



With one other pleasing feature I shall bring to a 

 close this account of the first, or spring, half of the 

 annual migration of our birds, and then be ready 

 to say something of the second half, or their re- 

 turn southward in autumn; and this pleasing con- 

 clusion is found in the fact that year after year, 

 and perhaps generation after generation, birds 

 return to the identical neighborhood in which they 

 and their forefathers have been bred. 



There is abundant evidence of this in all parts 

 of the world and for all kinds of birds, from the 

 ocean fowl that punctually almost to a day have 

 returned "since the time whereof the memory of 

 man runneth not to the contrary" to the familiar 

 sea-cliffs of Iceland or Alaska, to the wrens and 

 robins of our door-yards that come back year after 

 year to nestle in the same bushes. Who does not 

 know of nests of the phrebe-bird, made every sea- 



104 



