Birds by Land and Sea 



since those days, but the glory of that September 

 afternoon, when we first went out to " observe," and 

 returned, each with a hen's egg in his pocket, will 

 not come again. 



Some years elapsed between the experience re- 

 counted above and the time when I resolved to 

 commit to writing the record of a year's doings 

 among the birds of my own district, and of such 

 as I might come across in short excursions into the 

 adjacent country, or during holidays spent farther 

 afield. 



It was then the last week of September, 1902 

 the second great crisis of the year in bird-world. 



Looked at mentally, the distribution of bird-life 

 presents itself as a great permanent stream of birds 

 encircling the globe between the Polar regions and 

 the equator a stream, however, which flows across 

 rather than along. 



Already in August the first waves of the migra- 

 tory tide rippled southward, giving earnest of a 

 movement destined to break up the calm full flood 

 of summer life. Daily and nightly, with increasing 

 frequency and volume, one living wave followed 

 another, and we, who live within the northern bank, 

 as it were, of this great bird-stream, found ourselves 

 left among the shallows, from which the outward- 

 flowing tide of bird-life was drawing off. 



Although prepared in some measure by the 

 temporary retirement of numbers of the birds 

 during the moulting season for their subsequent 



4 



