in large numbers, Spain, Portugal, and been reported as a winter visitant to 



they are commonly found in Austria and Arabia. 



Upper Hungary, and occa'sionally they As the Nightingales disappear from 

 are found in Persia. They winter in their northern homes at the end of sum- 

 northern Africa in Nubia, Abyssinia, and mer, their inspiring songs must be 

 in Algeria, where they have also been greatly missed in their absence, 

 reported as breeding. They have also 



A FARMYARD AERONAUT 



In the farmyard a brood of early 

 March chickens were toddling about on 

 unsteady little yellow legs and after the 

 fashion of other babies, finding the world 

 full of strange things, bright and beauti- 

 ful, about which they chirped loudly 

 both to themselves and one another. And 

 after the fashion of other mothers, Mrs. 

 Leghorn was audibly certain that no 

 other brood was to be compared with 

 this of hers. So there was much noise 

 and' stir, and the wire enclosure was 

 filled with prattle and admonishments, 

 with baby experiments and maternal 

 pride, all of which gave much delight to 

 the farmer's two little children, who were 

 constantly on the watch. 



Outside and wandering aloof from 

 this evidence of domestic contentment, 

 was a disconsolate white goose — the only 

 web-foot of the yard. She had been 

 brought there in her goslinghood as a 

 curiosity and diversion for the farmer's 

 children, and at the sight of the little 

 Leghorns, there was awakened in her a 

 kind of instinctive remembrance of the 

 brood from which she had come the 

 spring preceding. But she hid her own 

 inner envy under a noisy show of superi- 

 ority, as she made sidewise haste to 

 the little brook near by, outside the pale 

 and possibility .of hendom. In the brief 

 premature heat that a mild March had 

 brought that day, the water seemed 

 tempting. 



Suddenly a faint, strange sound 

 seemed to come from the upper air, 

 which to her had hitherto been an un- 

 thought-of tract — entirely outside the in- 

 terest of a domestic barn-fowl. Then a 



growing restlessness, a vague compound 

 of fear and of a superanimal mystery 

 took possession of her. 



Honk, honk ! The calls resolved them- 

 selves into distinct, nearing summons. 



The farmer and his wife came hasten- 

 ing out, exclaiming, *'A flock of wild 

 geese !" They watched with heads thrown 

 back a couple of lines that formed a 

 V with each other and moved quickly 

 onward and nearer with a zigzag motion, 

 expanding and contracting as they went. 

 It was like a long, loose-linked chain, 

 heavily clanking as it moved — Honk, 

 honk! 



The tame white creature upon the 

 grass felt new stirrings — a wild spirit of 

 adventure, and the need of response to 

 these harsh, though to her doubtless mu- 

 sical, and certainly imperative calls that 

 came indeed from the very skies. Be- 

 fore the astonished eyes of the onlookers, 

 in too wild a sense of new freedom to 

 know what was happening to her she 

 rose, fluttering, sank, rose, up, up, in a 

 strange successful flight, and followed, 

 lagging, gaining — midmost the flapping 

 chain, one of its own moving links, from 

 which came back once more the grating 

 triumphant outcry — honk, honk ! 



It was November, and the noisy hens 

 and roosters had forgotten their chicken- 

 hood. Although in the interval the chil- 

 dren themselves had not grown percepti- 

 bly larger. The white goose was missed 

 more than ever now that the chickens in 

 their older clumsiness had lost interest 

 in the eyes of the children, to whom the 

 white web-foot would still have remained 

 a novelty. But Indian summer was all 



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