102 ON THE BIRDS' HIGHWAY 



before only a few scattered warblers were 

 to be found, the whole migrating hosts of 

 Mniotiltidae seemed to have arrived dur- 

 ing the night ; a single tree contained five 

 different species. Following them from 

 tree to bush they kept leading me from 

 one spot to another until I became fairly 

 bewildered by their overpowering num- 

 bers. Such days are never to be for- 

 gotten ; the pleasure and excitement of 

 that early morning ramble will linger long 

 in my memory. If the birds would come 

 only a species at a time as in March and 

 even April, one could spend much more 

 time with each individually, but when 

 May has once set in and the main wave 

 of migration has commenced, then every 

 woodland, meadow and orchard is swarm- 

 ing with so many varieties that one is 

 fairly overwhelmed. 



In summer, night herons sit motion- 

 less on the dead limbs overhanging 

 the water, and the kingfisher wakes the 

 echoes with his loud rattle, and the 

 lively solitary or spotted sandpiper paces 

 the mud spots on the shore. The breezes 

 carry the green carpet of duck-weed to 

 the opposite banks of the pond, and nu- 



