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Part Six

Fall Migration

JULY 1st to OCTOBER 31st

Tree Swallow

SEPTEMBER 1st to 10th

Orchard Oriole

SEPTEMBER 10th to 20th

Baltimore Oriole
Yellow Warbler

SEPTEMBER 20th to 30th

Ruby-throated Humming-bird
Kingbird
Wood Pewee
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Spotted Sandpiper
Purple Martin

OCTOBER 1st to 10th

Barn Swallow
Chimney Swift
Ovenbird
Wood Thrush
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Bobolink
Indigo Bunting
Scarlet Tanager

OCTOBER 10th to 31st

Red-eyed Vireo
Maryland Yellow-throat
Whip-poor-will
Nighthawk
Phoebe
Towhee
House Wren
Brown Thrasher
Catbird

NOVEMBER 1st to 30th

Field Sparrow
Vesper Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
Purple Grackle
Red-winged Blackbird
Cowbird
Mourning Dove
*Meadowlark
Kingfisher
Robin
Bluebird
*Red-headed Woodpecker
*Flicker
*Goldfinch
*Song Sparrow

*NOTE.--Irregular migrants; in some localities,
permanent residents. Occasionally the robin
and the bluebird winter in the north.

The Flight of the Birds

          Whither away, Robin,
          Whither away?
Is it through envy of the mapleleaf,
     Whose blushes mock the crimson of thy breast,
          Thou wilt not stay ?
The summer days were long, yet all too brief
     The happy season thou hast been our guest:
          Whither away?

          Whither away, Bluebird,
          Whither away?
The blast is chill, yet in the upper sky
     Thou still canst find the color of thy wing,
          The hue of May.
Warbler, why speed thy southern flight? Ah, why,
     Thou too, whose song first told us of the Spring?
          Whither away?

          Whither away, Swallow,
          Whither away?
Canst thou no longer tarry in the North,
     Here, where our roof so well hath screened thy nest?
          Not one short day?
Wilt thou--as if thou human wert--go forth
     And wanton far from them who love thee best?
          Whither away?

                                   Edmund Clarence Stedman

*To a Waterfowl

          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 painted on the crimson sky,
          Thy figure floats along.

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

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

   *         *          *         *          *         *

          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.

                                           William Cullen Bryant

*NOTE.--Reprinted by permission of
D. Appleton & Co. Copyright, 1903.

          I go to prove my soul!
I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first,
I ask not: but unless God send his hail
Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive:
He guides me and the bird.

          Browning: From "Paracelsus"

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