March 4—It was a dull morning with a "low celling" as the airmen call it, and a slight mist which obscured the early sun. I was returning, from my walk with a queer, eerie, feeling: familiar birds were not behaving in & familiar way? there way a sense-of suspense which I could not explain. At the top of every prominent tree a Shrike wis sitting, calling uneasily: Blackbirds, instead of singing, "were stealing away into' the undergrowth as if they had something to fear. T could not make any [sense out of it...so 1 walked back to the Hung-Jao Road and had my foot on the running board of my. car, when... The deep inimitable call of a Goose struck my eat, and as T looked skyward, the large grey form of a Bean Goose went gliding overhead, not more than 100 feet up: then things began to happen: the sound of quietly honking geese came to my ear and, within ten seconds, a large gaggle came sweep: ing over so close (o the ground that T could hear the swish of their wings. The pilot goose. two hundred yards ahead called softly and persistently to his convoy which erossed the road at an exact right-angle, headed due North. Twas. able to watch every' movement closely fand hear every sound made, What struck me most was the precision with which each bird flow at an angle so that one wing was always behind the pilot and the bird at the head of the wedge flow with both wings exposed: the great line of heavy birds went forward ko a rim, relentless, grey-clad army. quietly an-Swering the pilot's calls and muitering among themselves as if they were saying "keep the Uine...keep the line-" And as they disappeared through" the mist I thought of the. Shrikes, faithful sentinels of the bird world, who had sensed the coming of these strangers long before the human car or eye could detect them. Thave never had a watchman who could work for me like that—rs.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.