The Quiet Shore

No aspect of the shoreline is more mysterious than the flights of these shore-bird constellations. The constellation forms, as I have hinted, in an instant of time, and in that same instant develops its own will.

Birds which have been feeding yards away from each other, each one individually busy, suddenly fuse into this new volition and, flying, rise as one, coast as one, tilt their dozen bodies as one, and wheel off on the course the new group will have determined.

There is no such thing, I may add, as a lead bird or guide. Had I more space I should like nothing better than to discuss this new will and its instant of origin, but I do not want to crowd this part of my chapter.