78 BIKDS AND POETS 



in Ohio or Pennslyvania; then in New York; then 

 in Canada or Michigan or Missouri. They are fol- 

 lowed from point to point, and from State to State, 

 by human sharks, who catch and shoot them far 

 market. 



A year ago last April, the pigeons flew for two or 

 three days up and down the Hudson. In long bow- 

 ing lines, or else in dense masses, they moved across 

 the sky. It was not the whole army, but I should 

 think at least one corps of it; I had not seen such 

 a flight of pigeons since my boyhood. I went up 

 to the top of the house, the better to behold the 

 winged procession. The day seemed memorable and 

 poetic in which such sights occurred. ^ 



While I was looking at the pigeons, a flock of 

 wild geese went by, harrowing the sky northward. 

 The geese strike a deeper chord than the pigeons. 

 Level and straight they go as fate to its mark. I 

 cannot tell what emotions these migrating birds 

 awaken in me, — the geese especially. One seldom 

 sees more than a Hock or two in a season, and what 

 a spring token it is ! The great bodies are in mo- 

 tion. It is like the passage of a victorious army. 

 No longer inch by inch does spring come, but these 

 geese advance the standard across zones at one pull. 

 How my desire goes with them; how something in 

 me, wild and migratory, plumes itself and follows 

 fast! 



1 This proved to be the last flight of the pigeons in the valley 

 of the Hudson. The whole tribe has now (1895) been nearly ex- 

 terminated by pot-hunters. The few that still remain appear to 

 be scattered through the Northern States in small, loose flocks. 



