The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1881-03-11
TRE MIGRATIox OF BIRDS.

Familiar as this migration of birds is
to us. there is, perhaps, no question in
zoology more obscure. The long flights
they sake, and the unerring certainty
with which they wing their way between
the most distant places, arriving and
departing at the same period year after
wear, are points in the history of birds of
passage as. mysterious as why they select
a moonlight night to cross the Meditet-
ranean. But that their meteorological
instinct 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 rs winter
quarters by most OF tLem, and they may
be often noticed. on their way thither,
to hang over towns at night, pIZZled, in
spite of their experience, 10y the shifting
lights of the streets and houses. The
swallow or the nightingale may be some
times delayed by unexpected cIrcumstan-
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-
llteS revolving around the earth, their
arrival could hardly be more surely cal
1 culaJed 10y an astronomer. FOnl wealth
eI or fair, heat or cold, the puffinS repair
TO some of their stations punctually on
given day. as if their movements were
guided by cIock-wOrk The swiftness of
flight which characteriZcs most birds en-
ablsS them to cover a vast space in a
brief time. The common black swift
can fly 2T6 miles an hour, 4 speed which,
If it could be maintained for less than
[ half day, would carry the bird from its
winter to it's summer quarters. The
/ large purple swift of America is capable
/ of even greater feats on the wing. The
/ chimney swallow is slower, ninty miles
an hour being about the limit of its DOW
/ ers int the passenger pigeon of The
/ United States can do a journey of a
! thousand miles between sunrise and sun
/ set. II is also true, As the ingenious
+ Herr Pdlmen has attempted to show.
/ that migrants during their long flights
/ may he directed by an experience partly
/ inherited and partly acquired by the i'll
/ diyidual bird. They often follow the
! coast line of continents, and invariably
take. on their passage over the Medlter-
raneau. one of three routes. Bat this
( theory will not explain how they pilot
/ themselves across the broad oceans, and
( is invalidated by the fact, familiar t.
( every ornithologist, that the old and
: young birds do not journey in company.
Invariably, the young broOdS travel to-
getheT, then come, after an interval. the
parents, and finally the rear IS brought
up Ivy the weakly. infrm, mOlting and
! broken winged. This is the rule in the
autumn. The return journey is accom-
! pIished in a reverse order. The dis
tance travelled seems, moreover. to have
no relation to the size of the traveller
. The Swedish blue throat preformS its
maternal functions among the Laps. and
enjoys its winter holiday among the
negroes of Souddn. while the tiny ruby
throaied humming-bird proceeds annu-
ally from Mexico to Newfoundland and
back again, though one would imagine
that SO delicate little fairy would be
more at home among the caCti and
agdves of the TERRA Cailiente thIn
among the frs and fogs of the north
London Standard.