The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1880-11-12
BIRD MIGRATION.
A Geological Puxzle-Swiftness OF Birds
on the Wing.

A Geological Puzzle-swiftness of Birds
on the Wing.
From the London Standard
Familiar as this migration OF birds is
| to US, there Is, perhape, no question in
zoology more obscure. The long flights
they take, and the uneFring Certainty
with which they wing their way between
the most distant places, arriving and de-
parting at the same period year after
year, are points in the history of birds
of passage as mysterious rs they are in
teresting. We know that most migrants
| fly after shutdown, Though many of them
select a moonlight night 70 cross the
Mediterranean. But that their meteoro-
logical Instinct Is not unerring is proved
by the fact that thousands are every day
drowned in their flight over the Atlantic
and other oceans. Northern Africa and
! Western Asia are selected as wintar
quarters by most of them. and they may
be often noticed on their way thfther TO
hang over towns at night, puzzled, in
spite of their experience, by the shifting
lights of the streets and houses. The
swallow or the nightingale may some
times be delayed by unexpected circum-
stances. Yet it is rarely that they ar
one year with an other. Prof Newton
considered that were seafowls satellites
revolving round the earth. their arrival
could hardly be more surely calculated
by an astronomer Foul weather or fair,
heat or cold, the puff1ns repair TO some
of their stations punctaally on given
day, as if their movements were regula-
ted by clockwOrk.- The swiftness of
flight which characterizes most birds
enable them 20 cover vast space In a
brief time. The common black swift
can fly 276 miles an hour. speed which,
if it could be maintained for less than
half a day, would carry the bird from
its winter to IFS summer quarters. The
large purple swift of America Is capable
of even greater feats on the wing" The
chimney-swallow is slower-ninety miles
per hour being about the limit of its
powers; but the passenger pigeon of the
United States eau accomplish journey
of 1000 miles betwee sunrise and sunset
1t Is also true, as the ingenious Herr
Palmer has attempted 60 show, that mi
grants during their long flights may be
directed by an experience partly inherit
ed and partly acquired by the indFidu-
al bird. They often follow the coast
lines of the eoptinent, and invariable
take, on tLeir passage over the Mediter-
ranean, one of three routes. But this
theory will not explain how they pilot
themselves across broad oceans, and is
invalidated by the fact, familiar to every
ornlthologist that the old and young
birds do not journey in company, Inva-
risbIy, the young hraois travel Together,
then come, after an interval, the parents
and, finally the rear is brought up by the
weakly, infirm. molting and broken
winged. This Is the rule in autumn.
The return journey Is accomplished in
the reversed order. The distance travel
ed seems, moreover, to have no relation
to the size of the traveller. The Sweed-
ish blue throat performs its maternal
fqnctions among the Laps, and enjoys
its winter holiday among the negroes of
the Soudan, while the tiny, ruby throated
hnmming bird proceeds annually from
Mexico to Newfoundland and back a.
gain, though one would imagine that SO
delicate little fairy would be more at
home among the cacti and agaves of the
Tferre Caliente than among the frs and
fogs of the North.