Intimations. 35 



been commented upon. Imagine a gigantic screw, 

 some five hundred feet in length and of propor- 

 tionate diameter, standing on its head, and half a 

 thousand blackbirds, in a long and narrow band, 

 starting from the ground and following the thread 

 of the screw. Occasionally a line of dense white 

 smoke will describe much the same figure. When 

 the maximum height is reached a circular course 

 is followed until the birds are all upon the same 

 plane, when, as a huge black blanket, the flock 

 returns to the ground. 



Whatever may be said of blackbirds now, the 

 north-bound geese have their leaders, and if their 

 sonorous honking reaches our ears, one does not 

 think of the bitterness of wild March mornings. 

 This is one of those thoroughly thrilling sounds 

 that quickens the pulse and leads us a long way 

 towards realizing what the world about us really 

 means. When the river was wild and wild men 

 only dwelt about it, this call of the geese was a 

 familiar sound, and one that makes me envious of 

 early colonial days. Think of it ! Nils Gustafson, 

 a Swede, above ninety years of age, assured Peter 

 Kalm, in 1748, that he had killed twenty- three 



