A radiance above me, a changing freshness in the air, between warm and cold, a shudder of wings over the beach, another language of unexplored dimensions, life expressions understood in terms of sight and spirit, and still to be learned--the nonhuman advents that pass the limits of a man. There is a common realm of action and perception, whose boundaries we may never reach, where men can be more grateful for their belonging than their isolation. It is part of the changing state of inanimate things, the response of lesser forms of life to the construction and motion of the world that invades them and which they invade, and it is acted out by the mind. The tidal waves run through us all. To see as men see and merely to react like a moon snail or a horseshoe crab to the difference between light and dark are two representative actions in the same vast realm of response. Do men belabor the special nature of consciousness too much, as if it were some kind of A-1 badge that separated mankind from the rest of animate creation? Consciousness must be infinitely more mysterious, more connective, than any attributes we may assign it of personal distinction. XIII The Flight of Birds The appearance of migratory birds in fall and spring, or simply their constant activity, suggests their range. The ability that a gull displays in the turmoil of the air is enough to bring other winds to these shores, to make you realize that the beach joins the long shore line between Cape Cod and Florida, that the waters to the north of us move on toward Labrador and Baffin Bay. Their wings are allied to the circulation of the North Atlantic. New England is not so far from the Arctic Circle, and when the auks, the old squaws, or the buntings come down to Cape Cod in the autumn they bring the proof with them. We have had an appalling record this side of the Atlantic, of decimating the population of sea birds, which are more vulnerable than other species because of their nesting habits, on islands or rocky foreshores. The great auk has gone, and the puffins reduced to small numbers. If we were able to kill them all off, either on purpose or through lack of responsibility, what little island people it would make us!