100 EVERYDAY BIRDS 



No, they are not here, and even as I write I 

 seem to see the little family on their way to the 

 far south. They are making the journey by easy 

 stages, I hope — flitting from flower-bed to flower- 

 bed, now in Connecticut, now in New Jersey, and 

 so on through Pennsylvania and the Southern 

 States. WiU they cross the water to the West 

 Indies, as some of their hind are said to do ? or, 

 less adventurous, will they keep straight on to 

 some mountain-side in Costa Rica, or even in 

 Brazil ? I should be sorry to believe that the 

 parent birds took their departure first, leaving 

 the twin children to find their way after them as 

 best they could — as those who have paid most 

 attention to such matters assure us that many of 

 our birds are in the habit of doing. But how- 

 ever they go, and wherever they end their long 

 journey, may wind and weather be favorable, and 

 old and young alike return, after the winter is 

 over, to bmld other nests here in their native 

 New England. 



This passing of birds back and forth, a grand 

 semi-annual tide, is to me a thing of wonder. I 

 think of the milUons of sandpipers and plovers 

 which for two months (it is now late in Septem- 

 ber) have been pouring southward along the sea- 

 coast. Some of them passed here on their way 

 north no longer ago than the last days of May. 



