Page:The Way of the Wild (1923).pdf/186

 could hold the Gray Squadron so perfectly to its course. I am not sure. It is probably done by several powers which man does not possess. A sort of homing instinct. A sense of direction which does not depend upon compass or map. The air currents probably also help, but I think it is more instinct than anything else.

If one could have trained an opera glass upon the Flying Squadron as it cleaved the Labrador sky on that November twilight, it would have disclosed a wonderful sight. One hundred and four of the largest American game birds, with the exception of the wild turkey, each holding his place perfectly in the wedge-shape formation, flying about a rod apart, with strong, steady wing strokes, each with his long black neck stretched out in front of him like a race-horse, showing plainly the white crescent at the throat and with the legs drawn up well under to escape the rush of the wind. Such was this bird cyclone of the sky cleaving the twilight air at the rate of fifty-five or sixty miles an hour. Far beneath, the Lab-