2i8 Bird - Lore 



charge such outlandish prices for them. They are a very different people 

 there from you up here and they talk a different language but they are very 

 honest and very religious and never lose an opportunity to celebrate a 

 "fiesta" or feast day. 



"But Popayan is only one of a multitude of places that I have seen and 

 its people but one of many. I stayed there for only about three months, 

 behaving much as I do here, though I seldom sang and, of course, did not 

 build a nest or even see Mrs. Yellow the whole time. I really don't know 

 just where she did spend her winter though I am expecting her back here in 

 a few days and then we can ask her. I always like to go back to the same 

 place and I suppose she does too, though if you should ask me why, I 

 couldn't tell you. 



"Well, I left Popayan on a clear night when something within me told 

 me I had better start. I really don't know just what it is but I always feel 

 it every year at just the same time. Then, too, I heard lots of other birds 

 starting and I just felt I had to go too. There weren't a great many of us 

 right around Popayan that belonged up here, but there were quite a number 

 of Black-and- White Warblers, Blackburnians, and Redstarts as well as we 

 Yellows and you know we all get here at just about the same time each 

 spring. 



"Well I didn't fly very far that night, only about a hundred miles and 

 I stopped near a place called Call. The weather was warmer there as it is 

 only about 3,000 feet above sea-level. Here were large rice-fields and fields 

 of sugar-cane. Bananas and oranges were much better than at the higher 

 altitude and also the cacao, but the coffee was not as good. Large areas 

 were still given over to cattle. I stayed around Call for about a week before 

 I felt like moving again and then the instinct started me off once more. I 

 had to cross some rather high mountains this time, for the Cauca River 

 that I was following flows through a deep canon after it leaves Cartago, 

 so I mounted high in the air and by morning had crossed the divide into 

 the land drained by the Atrato River. This was low country and heavily 

 forested. The Cauca valley had but few forests, except at the higher 

 altitudes, but now I was in the real tropica forest and was not happy until 

 I had found a clearing made for a banana plantation. I remained about 

 this region for some time, meeting old friends who had wintered as far east 

 as Guiana and others who had flown still farther south than Popayan and 

 who had spent the winter on the slopes of Mt. Chimborazo. I wonder if 

 you know where those places are? 



"Well, the time came when I felt that I must hasten on to my old home 

 in the syringa bush. Some of my friends from Venezuela and Guiana said 

 they always took a short cut straight across the Caribbean Sea to Jamaica 

 and Cuba and thence to Florida, but I had always crossed over the Gulf of 

 Mexico from Yucatan to Alabama, and I knew the good feeding-places in 



