96 THE ADVENTURES OF A NATURE GUIDE 



slopes, birds from the Southland that have sum- 

 mered in the heights, and birds that have come 

 up from near but lower territory for this autumnal 

 feast. They gather from near and far, like folks 

 at a fair. 



Each spring most birds move northward a few 

 hundred or a few thousand miles. Most of them 

 nest and summer in the scenes which their ances- 

 tors selected. As soon as the children are ready 

 to travel they start for the Southland. As a rule, 

 they travel by easy stages, though a number of 

 species travel rapidly. But all must have food 

 along the way. And in the heathy places of the 

 heights, close to the eternal snowfields — in the 

 Arctic moorlands of the Rocky Mountains two 

 miles above the level of the sea — many birds 

 pause and celebrate. With this celebration they 

 close summer, begin autumn, and anticipate the 

 winter. 



The setting for this festival is one of strange 

 beauty and wild magnificence. The forest frontier 

 with its scattering of dwarfed and storm-battered 

 trees curtains this stage from the world below; 

 storied old snow-piles are a part of the scenery; 

 so, too, the high, near peaks; the enormous moraines; 

 the clear brooks — glad and wild with energy, vig- 

 orously beginning a thousand-mile journey to 

 the sea. Crags stand in heathy meadows, and 

 huge, scattered boulders are near the low-growing 

 Arctic willows. Leaves in the forest edge are 



