Wild Folk

ks, came beating down the wind, shouting to earth as they flew. Below them, although it was still fall, the tan-colored marsh showed ash-gray stretches of new ice, with here and there b

eat nests had stood like watchtowers above the level sphagnum bogs; for the trumpe

acked, the pintails whimpered-the air was full of duck-notes. As they swept southward, the different families took their places according to their speed. Well up in the van were the canvasbacks, who can travel at the rate of one hundred and sixty feet per second. Next came the pintails, and the wood-ducks, whose drakes have wings of velvet-black, purple, and white. The mallards and the black ducks brought up the rear; while far behind a cloud of blue-winged teal

e lead of the canvasbacks in front. Little by little, the tiny teal edged up, in complete silence, to the whizzing, grunting leaders, until at last they were flying right abreast of them. At first slowly, and then more and more rapidly, they drew awa

r bird. Unhampered by any flock-formation, the wing-beats of this lone flyer increased until he shot forward like a projectile. In a moment he was up to the leaders, then above them; and then, with a tremendo

the form of a black stripe around its beak which, with the long, rakish wings and hooked, toothed beak, marked it as the duck-hawk, one of the fiercest and swiftest of the falcons. As the hawk caught sight of the speeding little

that he was being pursued. Then, indeed, he squawked in mortal terror, and tried desperately to increase a speed which already seemed impossible. Yet ever the shadow hung over him like a black shroud, and then, in a flash, the little green-wing's fate overtook him. Almost too quickly for eye to follow, the duck-hawk delivered the terrible

a cluster of black dots showed against the blue. Swiftly they grew in size, until at last, under a sun far brighter than the one known to the earthbound, there flashed through the glittering air a flock of golden plover. They were still wearing their summer suits, with black brea

aight across the storm-swept Atlantic and the treacherous Gulf of Mexico, two thousand four hundred miles, they would fly, on their way to their next stop on the pampas of the Argentine. Fainter-hearted flyers chose the circuitous Island Passage, across Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Antilles, to the northern shore of South Americ

ad circled and wheeled and swooped in the wonderful evolutions of their kind, but had finally swung into their journe

to a great bird sparsely mottled with pearl-gray, whose pointed wings had a spread of nearly five feet. Driven down from Greenland by cold and famine, a white g

ies, and moreover it has all of that mysterious gift of the falcon family of following automatically every double and twist and turn of any bird which it elects to pursue. This one chose his victim, and in a flash was following it through the sky. Here and there, back and forth, up and down, in dizzy circles and bewildering curves, the great hawk sped after the largest of the plover. As if driven in some invisible tandem, the white

at, instead of dancing up and down, they shot forward with an almost inconceivable swiftness. It was as if a stream of bullets had suddenly become visible. Immeasurably faster than any bird of even twice its size, a flock of ruby-throated humming-birds, the smallest bird

lk. White-bellied tree swallows; barn swallows, with long forked tails; cliff swallows, with cream-white foreheads; bank and rough-winged swallows, with brown backs-the air was full of their whirling, curving flight. With them went their big brothers, the

together unlike those of any bird. Nor did any bird ever wear soft brown fur frosted with silver, nor have wide flappy ears and a hobgoblin face. Miles above the ground this earth-born mammal was beating the birds in their ow

ly southward alone-but not for long. Up from earth came again the great gyrfalcon, his fierce hunger unsatisfied with the few mouthfuls torn from the plover's plump breast. As his fierce eyes caught

nd which would have meant quick death to any bird who tried it. Skin, however, makes a better flying surface than feathers, and slowly but unmistakably the bat began to draw away from its pursuer. The gyrfalcon is the speed-king among birds, but the hoary bat is faster still. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed before the hawk realized that he was being outflown. Inc

ession of tiny black figures showed the whole sky to be full of these pilgrims from the north. The "chink, chink" of the bobolinks dropped through the stillness like silver coins; and from higher up came the "tsip, tsip, tsip" of the black-poll warblers, all the way from the Magdalen Islands. With them were a score or so of others of the great warbler famil

indigo bird had lost his vivid blue, the rose stain of the rose-breasted grosbeak was gone, along with the white cheeks of the black-poll warbler and the bla

no bird may pass. For hours they flew in dizzying circles, until, weary and bewildered, some of the weaker ones began to sink toward the dark water. Fortunately for them, at midnight the color of the light changed from wh

now-white breast, black head, curved wings, and forked tail. Nesting as far north as it can find land, only seven and a half degrees from the Pole, it flies eleven thousand miles to the Antarctic, and, ranging from pole to pole, sees more daylight than any