SOUTHWARD BOUND. 



A FALL EXPERIENCE. 



ELLA F. MOSBY. 



IT was October 8, and many birds 

 had gone on their long journey to 

 tropical lands. The fog hung thick 

 like a white blanket between the 

 trees, and obscured all distant ob- 

 jects, such as mountain ranges or wind- 

 ing rivers, from view. My home was 

 in Lynchburg, on the James River, and 

 consequently in the line of the "birds' 

 highway," and I was standing beside 

 the window on the lookout for migrants, 

 when, to my surprise, there alighted in the 

 tree beside me a female scarlet tanager 

 in olive-green and dusky yellow, with 

 her soft, innocent eyes looking with 

 gentle confidence around her. In a 

 few minutes the trees around her were 

 ringing with chip cheer! chip cheer! 

 from a large flock of tanagers that had 

 evidently lost their way in the fog, and 

 descended near the ground to make ob- 

 servations. During the morning three 

 different waves of migrating tanagers 

 passed, flying slowly and so low that it 

 was easy to see and recognize them. 



The next day it was again thickly 

 foggy. As I glanced out at the window I 

 saw another tanager, sitting motionless 

 on a bough. From ten to three wave 

 after wave, in even greater numbers 

 than the day before, passed. Fre- 

 quently there were from three to nine 

 tanagers perched in full view, occa- 

 sionally calling chip cheer! but usually 

 quietly resting or eating insects, of 

 which the trees were full. I heard one 

 cninching a hard-shelled bit in his 

 strong beak. The scarlet of summer 

 was not to be seen in the fall plumage 

 of green and yellow, but the books are 

 misleading when they speak of the 

 male as "dull," or "like the female." 

 It is true he is green above and yellow 

 underneath, but where her wings are 

 darker or "fuscous," his wings and tail 

 are a glossy, velvety black, and instead 

 of her dull yellow, his breast is a shin- 

 ning and vivid lemon-yellow, so that 

 he is almost as beautiful as in his black 

 and scarlet. In such large flocks I saw 



every phase of varying yellow or green 

 in the immature males and females, one 

 of the latter seeming a soft olive all 

 over, slightly greener above and slightly 

 more yellow below. Even in the spring, 

 when our woods ring with the joyous 

 calls and songs of both varieties, I have 

 never seen half the number of tanagers 

 together. 



I was interested in noticing how 

 many of our migrating birds gathered 

 in unusually large flocks. The oven 

 birds and the mocking-birds were seen 

 in large numbers before they left, for 

 many, if not most of the latter, do go 

 farther South in cold weather. I heard 

 one of the mocking-birds singing the 

 most exquisite song, but softened al- 

 most to a whisper, as if singing in a 

 dream a farewell to the trees he knew 

 so well. He sang in this way for quite 

 a long while, the rest of the flock flying 

 excitedly to and fro. I also saw a large 

 flock of chebecs instead of the one or 

 two scattered migrants I was accus- 

 tomed to see in the fall. The gay- 

 colored sapsuckers came to us in large 

 flocks — they spend the winter with us — 

 filling the trees around us. 



For the first time, too, I had an expe- 

 rience of the caprices of migrating 

 warblers. The blackpoUs and pine- 

 warblers, so numerous last year, had 

 evidently chosen another route to the 

 tropics, nor were the magnolia and the 

 chestnut-sided to be seen. But the 

 Cape May warblers, usually rare, were 

 very numerous, and remained long — - 

 from September 20 to October i8. This 

 might probably be explained by the 

 abundant supply of food, for the un- 

 usual warmth of the season had not 

 only awakened the fruit trees and lilacs, 

 thekalmia and other wild flowers, to a 

 second period of blooming, but had 

 filled the air with immense swarms of 

 tiny insects. Everywhere glittered and 

 danced myriads of winged creatures, 

 and the trees offered a plentiful table 

 for our insect-loving- warblers. 



