342 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



To anyone who witnesses these gatherings and 

 sees the birds rising from time to time from the 

 wood, and appearing like a big black cloud in the 

 sky, growing lighter and darker alternately as the 

 birds scatter wide or mass themselves in a closer 

 formation, until after wheeling about for some 

 minutes they pour back into the trees ; and who 

 listens to the noise they make, as of a high wind in 

 the wood, composed, as it is, of an infinity of in- 

 dividual voices, it must seem incredible that all these 

 birds can keep in pairs. For how could any couple 

 hold together in such circumstances, or when 

 separated ever meet again in such a multitude, or, 

 should they ever meet by chance, how recognise 

 one another when all are exactly alike in size, shape, 

 colour and voice i 



They can, and certainly do, keep together, and 

 when forced apart as, when pursued by a hawk, 

 they scatter in all directions, they can quickly find 

 one another again. They can do it because of their 

 perfect discipline, or instinct, or the perfection of 

 the system they follow during their autumn and 

 winter wanderings and migrations. 



The breeding season over, the birds in each 

 locality unite in a small flock composed of twenty 

 or thirty to fifty or more pairs and start their wander- 

 ing life. Those in the north migrate or drift south, 

 and vast numbers, as we see, spend the winter in 



