As a projecting pebble in mid-stream blurs the transparent water with a
myriad bubbles, so the narrow path of moon-rays, which our glass reveals,
cute a swath of visibility straight through the host of birds to our eager
eyes. How we hate to lose an instant's opportunity! Even a wink may allow
a familiar form to pass unseen. If we can use a small telescope, the field
of view is much enlarged. Now and then we recognise the flight of some
particular species,--the swinging loop of a woodpecker or goldfinch, or
the flutter of a sandpiper.

It has been computed that these birds sometimes fly as much as a mile or
more above the surface of the earth, and when we think of the tiny,
fluttering things at this terrible height, it takes our breath away. What
a panorama of dark earth and glistening river and ocean must be spread out
beneath them! How the big moon must glow in that rarefied air! How
diminutive and puerile must seem the houses and cities of human
fashioning!

The instinct of migration is one of the most wonderful in the world. A
young bob-white and a bobolink are hatched in the same New England field.
The former grows up and during the fall and winter forms one of the covey
which is content to wander a mile or two, here and there, in search of
good feeding grounds. Hardly has the bobolink donned his first full dress
before an irresistible impulse seizes him. One night he rises up and up,
ever higher on fluttering wings, sets his course southward, gives you a
glimpse of him across the moon, and keeps on through Virginia to Florida,
across seas, over tropical islands, far into South America, never content
until he has put the great Amazon between him and his far distant
birthplace.

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.
William Cullen Bryant.

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MAY

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THE HIGH TIDE OF BIRD LIFE

For abundance and for perfection of song and plumage, of the whole year,
May is the month of birds. Insects appear slowly in the spring and are
numerous all summer; squirrels and mice are more or less in evidence
during all the twelve months; reptiles unearth themselves at the approach
of the w