mere feather distinctions are likely to disappear. 

 Mutual need and good-fellowship prevail. It 

 is enough to be a bird, any kind of a well- 

 disposed bird, going this southern journey. For 

 how does one migrating bird differ from an- 

 other? He does not sing now, nor wear his 

 fine feathers, nor do a hundred things that in 

 the summer made him sufficient unto himself. 

 He just travels, and takes what comes ; and the 

 more to share it all, the merrier. A common 

 purpose started the birds off, and now a common 

 interest draws all of them together. They are 

 not a flock, but a company; not swallows and 

 swifts merely : they are bird pilgrims, of many 

 feathers, passing along the strange migration 

 road to a distant land. 



Perhaps this camaraderie of the pilgrimage 

 never reaches down to real friendship. But 

 what about that fellow-feeling which is brought 

 out by the stress of winter? This at least must . 

 come very near to friendship. A lean, hungry 

 winter makes close comrades among the birds. 

 They will all flock then. The only solitary, de- 

 fiant bird I meet in the winter is the great 

 northern shrike. What a froward, stiff-necked 

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