"They stay here later," Harry said, as they bagged the last bird, which,
be it observed, was the twenty-seventh, "than any where I know. Here I
have killed them when there was ice thicker than a dollar on all the
waters round about, and when you might see a thin and smoke-like mist
boiling up from each springlet. Kill them all off to-day, and you will
find a dozen fresh birds here to-morrow, and so on for a fortnight--they
come down from the high ground as it gets too cold for them to endure
their high and rarified atmosphere, and congregate hither!"
"And why not more in number at a time?" asked A---.
"Ay! there we are in the dark--we do not know sufficiently the habits of
the bird to speak with certainty. I do not think they are pugnacious,
and yet you never find more on a feeding ground than it will well
accommodate for many days, nay weeks, together. One might imagine that
their migrations would be made en masse, that all the birds upon these
neighboring hills would crowd down to this spot together, and feed here
till it was exhausted, and then on--but this is not so! I know fifty
small spots like this, each a sure find in the summer for three or four
broods, say from eight to twelve birds.
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