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Heron leaves his roost in the woods and starts for his fishing 

 grounds. A pair of Teal swing through the field of vision, 

 dark against the sky. A few restless Grackles start from the 

 marsh, heading for the hill, and soon the morning flight of 

 Redwings has begun. Scattering over the marsh, they do not 

 leave in the compact flocks that are so characteristic of the 

 evening flight. Single birds, more uneasy than the rest, 

 loose groups of seven or eight, or at times slightly larger 

 flocks, start for the hills to the east and to the west. By 

 eight o'clock most of the birds have left, and two hours later 

 one would scarce know there had been a Redwing in the marsh. 



Following these scattered birds as they leave, one finds some 

 of them continuing to the east, often for considerable distances 

 and high in the air, as though retracing their flight of the pre- 

 ceding evening before swinging to the north. Others continue 

 up the west shore of the lake, as did the majority of the early 

 flocks on the evening flight, but most of them do not fly far 

 before alighting to feed. During the day, by alternate periods 

 of feeding and short flights, they continue in a general northerly 

 or northwesterly direction until late afternoon. Then ensues 

 a more prolonged flight which is the real migration of the day. 

 This continues until almost dusk, when a straight line is made 

 for the nearest marsh. As they pass over fields where other 

 Redwings are feeding, the latter answer their calls and fly up 

 to join them. This may be repeated many times before the 

 arrival at the marsh, single birds collecting into small groups, 

 and the groups into large flocks. During the fall migration 

 the birds frequently retrace their flight to a greater or less ex- 

 tent, in order to reach the proper shelter, and are seen comng 

 into the marsh at nightfall from the south. In the spring, 

 however, they have not been observed (at Ithaca) to change 

 the direction of flight except to a northwesterly or westerly 

 direction; at this season they come into the marsh, as has 

 been stated previously, from the east and southeast as well as 

 from the south. In case a marsh is reached some time before 

 nightfall, they may finger, but the majority continue on their 

 way north until nearly dusk. 



This period of the migration, which I have termed the 



