“Being warm-blooded animals they cannot dive into the mud and hide, like fishes, or crawl into cracks of tree bark and wrap themselves up in cocoons, like insects. Neither do they drop their feathers and die away as tender plants drop their leaves and disappear. “People once believed that Swallows dived through the water into the mud, where they rolled themselves into balls and slept all winter. They thought this because Swallows are seen in early autumn in flocks about ponds and marshes, where they feed upon the insects that abound in such places. People thought that as Swallows were last seen in these places before they disappeared they must have gone under the water; but this was merely guessing, which is a very dangerous thing to do when trying to find out the plans that Nature makes for her great family. “Later yet, when the snow begins to fall, there is little or no bird music, only the hoot of an Owl, the shrill cry of the Hawks, the ‘quank, quank’ of the Nuthatch, that runs up and down the tree-trunks like a mouse in gray-and-white feathers, the jeer of the Jay, and the soft voice of the Chickadee that, as you have just heard, tells you his name so prettily as he peers at you from beneath his little black cap. “But the Catbird, Wren, Bobolink, Oriole, the Cuckoo that helped clear the tent caterpillars from the orchard, the Chat that puzzled the dogs by whistling like their master, the beautiful Barn Swallow, with the swift wings, that had his plaster nest in the hayloft, the Phœbe that built in the cowshed, and the dainty Humming-bird that haunted the honeysuckle on the porch and hummed an ancient spinning-song to us with his wings,—where are they all? “And why is it that while those have disappeared, some few birds still remain with us in spite of cold and snow?” THE FLIGHT OF THE BIRDS Whither away, Robin, Whither away? Is it through envy of the maple leaf, Whose blushes mock the crimson of thy breast, Thou wilt not stay? The summer days were long, yet all too brief The happy season thou hast been our guest. Whither away? Wither away, Bluebird, Whither away? The blast is chill, yet in the upper sky Thou still canst find the colour of thy wing, The hue of May. Warbler, why speed thy southern flight? Ah, why, Thou, too, whose song first told us of the spring, Whither away? Whither away, Swallow, Whither away? Canst thou no longer tarry in the North, Here where our roof so well hath screened thy nest? Not one short day? Wilt thou—as if thou human wert—go forth And wander far from them who love thee best? Whither away? —Edmund Clarence Stedman. _The Fall Migration_