XXI The Secret Flight 



BENEATH the apparent dullness of bird-life at 

 harvest-time there stirs already the impulse to 

 depart. In May and early June, when the birds 

 seemed most restless, they were tied to one place 

 more than at any other time of year. All their 

 interests were concentrated on their nests ; and 

 their activity was due to preoccupation with this 

 one anxiety, or to the need of feeding the young. 

 Now, when they seem to lead so settled and peaceful 

 a life under the canopy of the garden shrubberies 

 or the darkened woods, the instinct of winter 

 wandering is already working within them, as the 

 nights grow longer and the mists cling cooler at 

 dawn. The murmur of the sedentary wood-pigeons 

 fills the solemn gardens of later summer with a 

 deep sense of peace, but it is a music of illusion. 

 Already many of the birds that nested in and about 

 the gardens have left their haunts ; they have gone 

 on a restless and shifting journey, under the impulse 

 of a swelling tide of change. 



By the beginning of August the swifts are already 

 streaming southwards, though it is not until the 

 middle of the month that we may first miss them 

 from their haunts. In the depths of the bushes, 

 which are unknown to these birds of the high air, 

 pedestrian humanity can spy the furtive August 



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