OLD FRIENDS IN NEW PLACES 
them to come under my window by a plentiful 
sprinkling of finely cracked corn and _ bird-seed. 
They were always very shy, but they soon learned 
to associate me with the free lunch, so that, very 
soon after my appearance, — about nine o’clock in 
the morning, — they would begin to gather from the 
near-by coverts, one to two dozen white-throats, 
with four or five song sparrows, and now and then 
a female chewink. The chewinks remain there the 
year round, but the song sparrows and the white- 
throats, like myself, were only there for a season. 
By easy stages from one covert to another, trav- 
eling mostly at night, the birds were soon to begin 
the return journey northward. I think the same 
birds lingered with me day after day, though one 
cannot be sure in such a matter. The individual 
units in a stream of slowly passing birds of the same 
species do not differ from one another in appear- 
ance any more than do the separate ripples in a 
stream of flowing water. Outside of man’s influ- 
ence, the individuals of a species of wild creatures 
or wild flowers do not seem to differ from one an- 
other by as much as one hair or one feather or one 
petal. They are like coin stamped with the same die, 
and the wonder of it is that each and all, among the 
birds, at least, seem like new coin — not one blurred 
or imperfect impression. This fact always strikes 
one in gazing upon a flock of wild birds of any kind 
in the fall or in the spring. The wear and tear of life 
91 
