130 AT TEE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER. 
Late in September and in October there are 
days when the rush of migrating birds is like 
the stampede of a defeated army. I recall one 
such day, the 25th of September, 1891, when a 
torrent of migrants swept past my red-roofed 
cottage in the hour following sunrise. Before 
breakfast, and without going out of sight of my 
door, I saw over two hundred birds go by, in¬ 
cluding sixty pigeon woodpeckers, several sap- 
suckers, nuthatches, chickadees, crows, blue 
jays, robins, catbirds, seven kinds of warblers, 
solitary and red-eyed vireos, four kinds of spar¬ 
rows, a tanager, pewees, and a flock of cedar- 
birds. Most of these birds were on the trees, 
bushes, or ground, busily feeding, yet restlessly 
progressing southwestward, as though haunted 
by some irresistible impulse to keep in motion. 
The day was hot and still, and my notes men¬ 
tion the fact that we heard the splash of an 
osprey as he plunged into the lake, more than 
a quarter of a mile away. That evening the 
whippoorwills were singing their farewells in 
the soft moonlight. 
As the early October days glide by, these 
waves of migration come faster and faster, their 
acceleration seeming, as one looks back upon 
it, like the ever quicker throbbing of the air 
under the wing-beats of the grouse. Even as the 
drumming suddenly ceases and the summer air 
