ry for their support to pass from
one country to another when winter is coming on. At that time they
leave us.

"Some people think that martins and swallows hide themselves from the
cold in holes in rocks and banks, or in hollow trees; but Wilson,
who spent many years in watching the habits of birds, and learning
their history, thinks that these fly a great way off to a warmer
country as winter approaches, and that they return again in the
spring."

"But how can they find the way?" asked Frank.

"All that we know about that, Frank, is, that He who created the
martins has given to them the knowledge that guides them right. In
their long way through the pathless air, they never make a mistake.
Our great vessels and our skilful captains sometimes get lost in the
wide ocean; but these little birds always know the way, and arrive
with unerring certainty at their place of destination.

"Our great poet, Bryant, has written some beautiful lines to a
water-fowl, which express this idea. I will repeat these lines to you
if you like to hear them.

'Whither, 'midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly limned upon the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,--
The desert and illimitable air,--
Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.'"

"