Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1881-02-11
Tho Migration OF Birds.

Familiar as this migration OF birds Is
to as, there is. perhaps. no question IN
zoology more obscure The long flights
they take, ami the unegring certainty
with which they wing their way be-
tween the most distant places, arriving
and departing at the same period year
after year, are pOllts IL the history OF
birds of passage as mysterious as why
they select moonlight night to cross
the Mediterranean. Bat that their
meteorological instinct is not uEerring
is proved by the fact that thousands are
every year drowned in their flight over
the Atlantic and other oceans. Northern
Africa and Western Asia are selt cted as
winter quarters by most Of them, and
they may be often noticed on their way
thitLer. to hang over towns at night,
puzzled, in spite of their experience.
by the shifting lights Of the streets AID
houses. The swallow or the nightin
gale may be sometimes delayed by IN
expected circumstances. Yet it is rare
ly that they arrive or depart many days
sooner or later, one year with another.
Professor Newton considered that, were
sea fowls satellites revolving round the
Garth, their arrival could hardly be
more surely calculated 10y an astronc-
mer. Foul weather or fair, heat or
cold, the putlius repair to some OF their
stations punctually on given day, as
if their movements were regulated Icy
clockwork. The swiftness of flight
which characteriZaS most BIRDS enables
them to cover a vast space in u brief
time. The common black swift can fly
276 miles an hour, a speed which, if it
could be maintained for less than half
day, would carry the bird from ite
winter to its summer quarters. The
large purple swift OF America is capa-
BILE OF even greater feats on the wing.
The chimney swallow is slower, ninety
miles an hour being about the limit
of its powers; but the passenger pigeon
OF the United States can accom- plush g
journey of 900 miles between sunrise
and sunset. 1t is alse truo, as the III
genious Herr Palmer has attempted TO
show, that migrants during their long
flights may be directed by an eX-
cerience partly inherited and part
ly acquired by the individual bird.
They often follow the coast line Of con-
tinents, and invariably take, on their
passage over the Mediterranean, orc of
three routes. But this theory will no.
explain how they pilot themselves
across the broad oceans, and is invali
dated 10y the fact, familiar to every
ornithologst, that the old and young
birds do not journey in company. H.
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
the autumn. The return journey is
accomplished in the reverse order. The
distance Travelled seems, moreover, to
have no relation 10 tie size of the
traveller. The Swedish blue throat
performs its maternal functions among
the Laps, and enjoys its winter holiday
among the negroes of Soudan, while
the tiny ruby-throated humming- bird
proceeds annually from Mexico to New
foundland and back again, though one
would imagine that 80 delicate little
fairy would be rsore at home among
the cacti and agaves of the TERRA Cal
liente than among the frs and fogs of
the North London Standard,