. News from the birds . heir travels, and hence lesstemptation to stop by the way. The noc-turnal flight of the migrating hosts may beproved in two ways : First, go out at night inthe spring or autumn and you will hear thechirping of the feathered voyagers overheadas they pass in loose flocks; second, if youtake a tramp to the fields and woods early ona spring morning you will find numerous spe-cies that could not be seen at all on the pre-vious day. Besides, those who have chargeof lighthouses often find that many birds dashagainst them, often with fatal eifect, on foggyand stormy nights. Do
. News from the birds . heir travels, and hence lesstemptation to stop by the way. The noc-turnal flight of the migrating hosts may beproved in two ways : First, go out at night inthe spring or autumn and you will hear thechirping of the feathered voyagers overheadas they pass in loose flocks; second, if youtake a tramp to the fields and woods early ona spring morning you will find numerous spe-cies that could not be seen at all on the pre-vious day. Besides, those who have chargeof lighthouses often find that many birds dashagainst them, often with fatal eifect, on foggyand stormy nights. Do you ask if they make their long jour-neys by a continuous flight ? No, they do not;most species go by stages. As the warmweather comes on at their southern winterhome, they leave for a more northern latitude,perhaps a nights flight away; here they mayspend a few days or a week, enjoying thepleasant weather and feeding on the numerousinsects lured out of their winter quarters bythe warm sunshine. By and by the birds will. bfi O ec 1 144 KEWS FROM THE BIRDS. make another nocturnal journey northward,and thus by degrees the whole pilgrimage isaccomplished. Here is an instance which came under myown eye. On the twelfth of April my train,bound for New Orleans, stopped for some min-utes at a small station in northern from the train, I got a glimpse of sev-eral myrtle warblers flitting about in the treesof the woods near the tracks. About four weekslater, on my return to the North, I stopped forseveral days at the same station to watch thebirds, but not a single myrtle warbler did I seein the whole country round, though I traversedit for miles over valley and mountain. Thesewarblers had stopped there for a while in Aprilon their migratory tour, and then had skimmedaway for more northern climes. Yet some of them did not go very far—not more than eighty or ninety miles—for Ifound them quite abundant on the ninth ofMay on the top of Lookout Mountain in Ten-nessee, whe
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