MIGRATION . 
119 
separated from the strong and left to die. Then, 
sometimes by day, sometimes by night, the hosts 
meet, drawn together by a force as irresistible 
and mysterious as magnetism, and finally the 
story of tjie great journey is written in fact once 
more. 
In the August mornings I hear the Swainson’s 
thrush by the lake. He was not there a few 
days before, he was on the mountain-side. He 
is drifting southward, slowly at first, but feeling 
the thrill of the Pied Piper’s music in his wings. 
All through the summer I have listened in vain 
for the nasal “quank , quanJc , quank of the red 
nuthatch. Suddenly, in mid-August, I hear it 
on the mountain, and an hour or two later every 
flock of chickadees brings the northern migrant’s 
call along with the jolly chorus of “dee, dee , 
dee.” These chickadees, alert, courageous, tire¬ 
less, and generous, are the convoys of the warbler 
fleets. For an hour the silence of the forest 
will be broken only by the tiresome platitudes 
of the red-eyed vireo, the dry staccato of the 
harvest-fly, and the occasional whistle of a hyla. 
Then, far away, will be heard the faint “ dee-dee ” 
of the titmouse. It comes nearer, and presently 
a dozen or twenty little birds are seen hovering, 
darting, flitting, but steadily advancing, tree by 
tree, through the woods. Perhaps not more than 
one in ten will be a chickadee, yet it is the chick- 
