The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1880-12-17
The Migration Of Birds.

London standard.
Familiar as this migration of birds is
to US, there is, perhaps, no question in
zoology more obscure. The long flights
they take and the uncrring certainty
with which they wing their way be-
tween the most distant places, arriving
and departing at the same period year
after year, are points in the history of
birds Of passage as mysterious as they
are interesting, We know that most
migrants fly after shutdown, though
many Of them select moonlight night
to cross the Mediterranean. But that
their meteorological instinct is not un-
eming is proved by the fact that thou
sands are every year drowned in their
flight over the Atlantic and other
oceans, Northern Africa and Western
Asia are selected rs winter quarters by
most of them, and they may be often
noticed on their way thither 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 ii is rarely that they ar
rive or depart many days sooner or
later, one year with another Prof.
Newton considered that were sea-fowl
satellites revolving around the earth
their arrival could hardly be more
surely calculated by an astronomer.
Foul weather or fair, heat or cold, the
puflins repair to some of their stations
punctually on given day, as if their
movements We're regulated by clock
work The swiftness Of fight which
characterizes most birds enables them
to cover vast space in brief time.
The common black swift can fly PIG
miles an hour, a speed which, if il could
be maintained for less than half day,
would carry the bird from its winter to
its summer quarters The large purple
swift of America is capable of even
greater feats on the wing. The Chin
ney swallow is slower-90 miles per
hour being about the limits of its pow
er; but the passenger pigeon OF the
| United States can accomplish q journey
| of 1000 miles between sunrise and sun
set. 1t is also true, rs the ingenious
Herr Palmer has attempted to show,
that migrants during their long flights
may be directed by an experience part
" inherited and partly acquired by the
individual bird They often follow the
coast lines of continents, and invariably
take on their 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
ornithologist, that the old and young
birds do not journey in company. In
variably, the young broods travel to-
gether then come, after an interval,
the parents; and finally the rear is
brought up by the weakly, intirm,
melting, and broken-winged. This is
the rule in autumn. The return jour-
ncy is accomplished in the reverse or
der. The distance travelled seems,
moreover, to have no relation to the
size of the traveller. The Swedish blue
throat performs its material functions
among the Laps, and enjoys its winter
holiday among the negroes of the Sou
dan, while the tiny, ruby-throated hum
ming-bird proceeds annually from
Mexico TO Newfoundland and back
again. --Ee-s..-,