The Swarm Spirit 



migration, or calls the lemmings to hurry over 

 plain and forest and mountain till they all drown 

 themselves in the distant sea ; for no sooner is the 

 brief drill over than the companies scatter quietly, 

 each to its own place, and the individual birds 

 are again alert, inquisitive, well balanced, pre- 

 cisely as they were before. 



The drill is seen at its best among the plover, 

 I think; and, curiously enough, these are the only 

 birds I know that practise it frequently, in small 

 or large numbers and in all weathers. I have often 

 watched a flock come sweeping in to my decoys, 

 gurgling like a thousand fifes with bubbles in them ; 

 and never have I met these perfectly drilled birds, 

 which stay with us but a few hours on their rapid 

 journey from the far north to the far south, without 

 renewed wonder at their wildness, their tameness, 

 their incomprehensible ways. That you may vis- 

 ualize our problem before I venture an explana- 

 tion, here is what you may see if you can forget 

 your gun to observe nature with a deeper interest: 



You have risen soon after midnight, called by 

 the storm and the shrilling of passing plover, and 

 long before daylight you are waiting for the birds 

 on the burnt-over plain. Your "stand" is a hole 

 in the earth, hidden by a few berry-bushes; and 

 before you, at right angles with the course of the 

 storm (for plover always wheel to head into the 



[US] 



