It is because the ducks fly high and silent that I see them so rarely.
They are always a surprise. You look, and there against the dull sky they
move, strange dark forms that set your blood leaping. But I never see a
string of them winging over that I do not think of a huge thousand-legger
crawling the clouds.

My glimpses of the geese are largely chance, too. Several times, through
the open window by my table, I have heard the faint, far-off honking, and
have hurried to the roof in time to watch the travelers disappear. One
spring day I was upon the roof when a large belated flock came over,
headed north. It was the 20th of April, and the morning had broken very
warm. I could see that the geese were hot and tired. They were barely
clearing the church spires. On they came, their wedge wide and straggling,
until almost over me, when something happened. The gander in the lead
faltered and swerved, the wedge lines wavered, the flock rushed together
in confusion, wheeled, dropped, then broke apart, and honking wildly,
turned back toward the bay.

It was instant and complete demoralization. A stronger gander, I think,
could have led the wedge unbroken over the city to some neighboring pond,
where the weakest of the stragglers, however, must have fallen from sheer
exhaustion.

Scaling lower and lower across the roofs, the flock had reached the
center of the city and had driven suddenly into the roar and confusion of
the streets. Weary from the heat, they were dismayed at the noise, their
leader faltered, and, at a stroke, the great flying wedge went to pieces.

There is nothing in the life of birds quite so stirring to the imagination
as their migration: the sight of gathering swallows, the sudden appearance