Weihaiwei, Oct. 4—Nature is kind and hands out her gifts with the regularity of birthday presents at the change of every season. Now we have the gift of the Autumn: migration bringing with it sights and sounds to delight our eyes and ears....if we but have the ears and eyes to take them in. So much do I become interested in these phenomena, and so much do I see and hear which others appear to miss, that I was interested the other day to read a little article from the pen of an American author in which he claimed that it was often Possible to detect the presence of migrating birds from the sounds made by other birds which have not only keen hearing, but the faculty of imitation. I have often said that I am reminded of the coming of the Orioles in Shanghai the Blackbirds which give an imitation of their call some days before I see the Orioles themselves: friends have thought that I exaggerated when I said this, but here isto statement by an American naturalist who says that on moonlight nights in October he often hears a mockingbird (America's most remarkable songster) adding to his repertoire the faint cries of migrants: he further claims that, having heard the mockingbird reproducing "a whole concert of the voices of certain shore birds," he repaired to a seabeach a few miles away and there found the birds indicated. This sounds a tall story but it exactly reproduces certain of my experiences in Shanghai where Blackbird, Mynah and Red-backed Shrike have told me, quite unconsciously, of what they hear. But here, alas, we have no "mocking-birds" Flycatchers, Warblers, Orioles,—Wagtails, Whiteyes, Rollers, Kingfishers, Nightjars,...... Falcon, Hobby, Kite and Merlin. are swiftly passing by. and if I want to see them I just have to go out and look for them myself,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.