CHAPTER X
DOWN THE INDIAN RIVER
The bobolinks, bound for South America and
perpetual summer, go by a route which most
birds, strange to say, shun. They pass down
through Florida and over the Caribbean Sea,
touching at Cuba, Jamaica and Yucatan. Why
this is not the popular route with all birds it is
difficult to say. It offers the most land surface
for food and the shortest sea flights on the way,
being in its comfort and elegance a sort of Pullman
train route which the Florida East Coast
pleasure seekers imitate. Yet there seem to be
only about ten of the migrating birds which follow
it. The yellow-billed cuckoo is one of these, and
last night I heard him spring his musical rain-call
in the guava bushes while the wind in the palm
trees overhead beat a zylophonic accompaniment.
It is now mid-January, and I am a little in doubt
whether this cuckoo has paused on his southward
way and winter is yet to come, or whether he is
one of the first of the spring migrants to turn his
flight northward, so gently does one summer fade
