§4 IN BIRD LAND. 



That the army of migrants travel mostly by night 

 is a well-known fact that can be verified by any one 

 who will stand out-of-doors and listen to their chirp- 

 ing overhead. They seem to move in loose flocks, 

 for there are intervals of complete silence, followed 

 by a promiscuous chirping from many throats. Nor 

 are these nocturnal calls all uttered by a single 

 species, but usually a number of species seem to be 

 travelling in company. One might say, therefore, 

 that the feathered army moves in squads. As they 

 travel in the dark, very little can be said about their 

 flight ; but every student has found species of birds 

 in an early morning ramble which he could not find 

 anywhere on the previous day, proving that they must 

 have arrived in the night. Here is a single excerpt 

 — many might be given — from my note-book : " On 

 the third of March, 1894, 1 took a long stroll into the 

 country, remaining in the fields until dusk ; not a 

 single meadow-lark was to be seen or heard. At 

 daybreak next morning, however, the shrill whistle 

 of I know not how many larks rose like musical 

 incense from the fields and commons in the rear of 

 my house. Depend upon it, had these lavish min- 

 strels been in the neighborhood during the previous 

 afternoon, they would not have escaped my atten- 

 tion, for they could not have kept their music in 

 their larynxes, not they ! There is a cog in Nature's 

 machinery lost if the meadow-larks are silent for 

 a half day in the spring." 



In 1885 Mr. William Brewster, the well-known 

 ornithologist, made some intensely interesting dis- 



