The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1881-03-16
The Migration of Birds.

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 unerring certainty
with which they wing their way between
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 why they select
a moonlight night to cross the MediterTa-
mean. But that their meteorological in
stinct is not unerring is proved by the
fact that thousands are every year
drowned in their fight over the Atlantic
and other oceans. Northern Africa and
Western Asia are selected as winter
quarters by most of them, and they may
be often noticed, on their way thither, to
hang over towns at night, puzzled, i'll
spite of their experience, by the shifting
lights of the streets and houses. The
swallow OF the nightingale may be some
times delayed by unexpected circumstans
ces. Yet it is rarely that they arrive or
depart many days sooner or later, one
year with another. Professor Newton
considered that, were sea fowls satel-
lites revolving round the earth, their ar
rival could hardly be more surely calcu5
lated by an astronomer. Foul weather
or fair, heat or cold, the puffins repair to
some of their stations punctually ON
given day, as if their movements were
guided by clock work The swiftness of
fight which characterizes most birds en-
ables them to cover vast space i'll brief
time. The common black swift can fly
27G miles an hour, a speed which, if it
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 chimney
swallow is slower, ninety miles an hour
being about the limit of its powers; but
the passenger pigeon of the United States
can do Il Journey of thousand miles
between sunrise and sunset. 1t is also
true, as the ingenious Herr Palmen has
attempted to show, that migrants during
their long flights may be directed by an
experience partly inherited and dpaItlyae
quired by the individual bird. They
often follow the coast line of continents
and invariably take, on the passage over
the Mediterranean, one of their routes.
But this theory will not explain how they
pilot themselves across the broad oc cans,
and is invalidated by the fact, famil lar to
every ornithologist, that the old and
young birds do not journey in company.
Invariably, the young broods travel to-
gether, then come, after an interval, the
parents, and finally the rear is brought
up by the weakly, intirm, molting and
broken winged. This is the rule in the
autumn. The return journey is accom-
plished in the reverse order. The dis
tance travelled seems, moreover, to have
no relation to the 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 an
nually from Mexico to Newfoundland
and back again, though one would
imagine that so delicate a little fairy
would be more at home among the cacti
and agaves of the TERRA Calliente than
among the frs and fogs of the North. h.-
London Standard,