g over the marshes and settled upon a sand-bar in the river,
darkening it in patches. At eight o'clock, when we took the straggling
road out of the hills, a good many--there might be a thousand, I
guessed--sat, upon the fence wires, as if resting. We walked inland, and
on our return, at noon, found, as my notes of the day express it, "an
innumerable host, thousands upon thousands," about the landward side of
the dunes. Fences and haycocks were covered. Multitudes were on the
ground,--in the bed of the road, about the bare spots in the marsh, and
on the gray faces of the hills. Other multitudes were in the bushes and
low trees, literally loading them. Every few minutes a detachment would
rise into the air like a cloud, and anon settle down again. As we stood
gazing at the spectacle, my companion began chirping at a youngster who
sat near him on a post, as one might chirp to a caged canary. The effect
was magical. The bird at once started toward him, others followed, and
in a few seconds hundreds were flying about our heads. Round and round
they went, almost within reach, like a cloud of gnats. "Stop! stop!"
cried my companion; "I am getting dizzy." We stopped our squeakings, and
the cloud lifted; but I can see it yet. Day after day the great
concourse remained about the hills, till on the 13th we came away and
left them. The old lighthouse keeper told me that this was their annual
rendezvous. He once saw them circle for a long time above the dunes, for
several hours, if I remember right, till, as it seemed, all stragglers
had been called in from the beach, the marsh, and the outlying grassy
hills. Then they mounted into the sky in a great spiral till they
passed out of sight; and for that year there were no more swallows.
This, he insisted, took place in the afternoon, "from three to four
o'clock." He was unquestionably telling a straightforward story of what
he himself had seen, but his memory may have been at fault; for I find
it to be the settled opinion of those who ought to know, that swallows
migrate by day and not by night, while the setting out of a great flock
late in the afternoon at such a height would seem to indicate a
nocturnal journey. Morning or evening, I would give something to witness
so imposing a start.

The recollection of this seaside gathering raises anew in my mind the
question why, if swallows and swifts migrate exclusively in the daytime,
we so rarely see anything of them on the passage. Our Ips