THE BIRDS IN THE MOON 



By C. WILLIAM BEEBE 





HE lover of birds 

 who has spent the 

 day in the field, 

 puts away his 

 glasses at night- 

 fall, looking for- 

 ward to a walk af- 

 ter dark only as a 

 chance to hear the call of nocturnal 

 birds or to catch the whirr of a pass- 

 ing wing. But some bright moonlight 

 night in mid-September, unsheath 

 your glasses and tie them, telescope 

 fashion, to a window-ledge or railing. 

 Seat yourself in an easy position and 

 focus on the moon. Shut out all earth- 

 ly scenes from your mind and imagine 

 yourself wandering amid those arid 

 wastes. What a scene of cosmic deso- 

 lation. What vast deserts, what gap- 

 ing craters of barren rock ! The cold, 

 steel-white planet seems of all things 

 most typical of death. 



But those specks passing across its 

 surface! At first you imagine they 

 are motes clogging the delicate blood- 

 vessels of the retina ; then you wonder 

 if a distant host of falling meteors 

 could have passed. Soon a larger, 

 nearer mote passes ; the moon and its 

 craters are forgotten and with a thrill 

 of delight you realize that they are 

 birds, — living, flying birds, — of all 

 earthly things typical of the most vital 

 life ! Migration is at its height, the 

 chirps and twitters which come from 

 the surrounding darkness are tantaliz- 

 ing hints telling of the passing legions. 

 Thousands upon thousands of birds are 

 every night pouring southward in a 

 swift, invisible, aerial stream. 



As a projecting pebble in mid-stream 

 blurs the transparent water with a my- 

 riad bubbles, so the narrow path of 



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moon-rays cuts a swath of visibility 

 straight tlirough the host of birds to 

 our eager eyes. How we hate to lose 

 an instant's opportunity. Even a wink 

 may allow a familiar form to pass un- 

 seen. If we can use a small telescope, 

 the field of view is much enlarged. Now 

 and then we recognize the flight of 

 some particular species, — the swinging 

 loop of a woodpecker or goldfiinch, or 

 the flutter of a sandpiper. 



It has been computed that these birds 

 migrate from one to three miles above 

 the surface of the earth, and when we 

 think of the tiny fluttering things at 

 these terrible heights it takes our 

 breath away. What a panorama of 

 dark earth and glistening river and 

 ocean must be spread out beneath 

 them ! How the big moon must glow 

 in that rarified air ! How diminutive 

 and puerile must seem the houses and 

 cities of human fashioning! 



The instinct of migration is one of 

 the most wonderful in the world. A 

 young bob-white and a bobolink are 

 hatched in the same New England 

 field. The former grows up and dur- 

 ing the fall and winter forms one of 

 the covey which is content to wander 

 a mile or two, here and there, in search 

 of good feeding grounds. Hardly has 

 the bobolink donned his first full dress 

 before an irresistible impulse seizes 

 him. One night he rises up and up, 

 ever higher on fluttering wings, sets 

 his course southward, gives you a 

 glimpse of him athwart the moon, and 

 keeps on through Virginia to Florida, 

 across seas, over tropical islands, far 

 into South America, never content un- 

 til he has put the great Amazon be- 

 tween him and his far-distant birth- 

 place. 



