195 
1892.] 
The Pasfti/Kj of the Birds. 
they do not wander they are likely to 
heeome silent. If we miss them, there¬ 
fore, we are not to comdnde as a mat¬ 
ter of course that they have gone south. 
Last year, during the early part of the 
season, (aickoos, both black-hills and 
yellow-hills, were imiisnally plentiful, 
as it seemed to me. Then 1 discov¬ 
ered all at once that there were none 
to he found. After the first of July I 
neither saw nor heard a cuckoo of either 
s])ecies! Had they moved away ? I do 
not know; hut the case may be taken 
as an extreme illustration of the uncer¬ 
tainty attaching to the late-summer do¬ 
ings of birds in general. Every student 
must have had experiences of a sort to 
make him sIoav to dooniatize when such 
O 
points are in question. Throughout May 
and June, for example, he has heard 
and seen wood thrushes in a certain 
grove. After that, for a whole month 
he hears and sees nothing, though he is 
frequently there. The thrushes have 
gone? So it would seem. But then, 
suddenly, they are singing again in 
the very same trees, and he is forced 
to conclude that they have not been 
away, but during their period of mid¬ 
summer silence have eluded his notice. 
On the whole, therefore, after making 
alloAvance for particular cases in which 
we may have more precise information, 
it would be hard, I think, to say just 
when our nocturnal travelers set out 
on their long journey. As the poet 
prayed Life to do. 
Tliey steal away, give little warning, 
Choose their own time ; 
Say not goocl-niglit, — hut in May’s brighter 
clime 
Bid us good-morning. 
Their departure bereaves ns, but, all 
in all, it must be accounted a blessing. 
Like the falling of tlie leaves, it touclies 
the heart with a pleasing .sadness, — 
a sadness more delicious, if one is born 
to enjoy It, than all the merry-making 
of springtime. And even for the most 
unsentimental of naturalists the autum¬ 
nal season has many a delightful hour. 
J'he year is almost done; but for the 
moment the whole feathered world is 
in motion, and the sliortest walk may 
show him the choicest of rarities. 
Thanks to the passing of the birds, his 
lo(*al studies are an endless jmr.suit. “It 
is now more than forty years that I 
have paid some attention to the orni¬ 
thology of this district, without being 
able to exhaust the sul)ject, ’’ says Gil¬ 
bert White; “new occurrences still arise 
as long as any inquiries are kept alive.” 
A liappy man is the bii'd-lover; always 
another species to look for, another 
mystery to solve. His expectations 
may never be realized, but no matter; 
it is the hope, not its ftdtillment, that 
makes life worth having. How can 
any New Englander imagine that he 
has exhausted the possibilities of exist¬ 
ence so long as he has never seen the 
Lincoln finch and the Cape May war¬ 
bler ? 
But “I speak as a fool.” Our hap¬ 
piness, if we are bird-lovers indeed, 
waits not upon novelties and rarities. 
All such exceptional bits of private 
good fortune let the Fates send or with¬ 
hold as they will. The grand specta¬ 
cle itself will not fail us. Even now, 
through all the northern country, the 
procession is getting under Avay. For 
the next three months it will be pass¬ 
ing,—-millions upon millions: warblers, 
S])arrows, tluaishes, vireos, blackbirds, 
flycatchers, Avrens, kinglets, Avoodpeck- 
ers, SAvalloAVS, humming-birds, haAA'ks; 
Avith san(lpi})ers, ploA^ers, ducks and 
geese, gulls, and aa'Iio knoAVS hoAV many 
more? Night and day, Aveek days and 
Sundays, they Avill be flying: uoav sin¬ 
gly or in little groups, and flitting from 
one Avood or jiasture to another; uoav in 
great conq)anies, and Avitli ])rotracted 
all-day or all-night flights. Who could 
ask a better stimulus for his imagina¬ 
tion than the ammal soutliing of this 
mighty host? Each member of itknoAvs 
his OAvn time aud his oavu course. On 
such a day the sni})e Avill be in such a 
