Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1882-12-27
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 his
tory OF birds OF passage as mysterious as
they are interesting. We know the most
migrants fly after shutdown, though many of
them select moonlight night to cross the
Mediterranean. But that their meteorolog-
ical instinct is not unerring 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 selected as winter quarters by most of
them, and they may often be 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 sometimes be delayed by unexpected
circumstances. Yet it is rarely that they
arrive or depart many days sooner or later,
one year from another. Professor Newton
considered that were they sea-fowl satellites
revolving round the earth their arrival could
hardly be more surely calculated by an as
tronomer. Foul weather or fair, heat or
cold, the puffns repair to some of their sta
tions punctually on given day, as if their
movements were regulated by clock-work.
The swiftness or flight which characterizes
most birds enables them to cover vast
space in brief time. The common black
swift can fly 276 miles an hour, 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 chin.
ney swallow is slower-ninety miles per
hour being the limit of its powers but the
passenger pigeon of the United States can
accomplish journey of 1000 miles between
sunrise and sunset. 1t is also true, as the
ingenious Herr Palmer has attempted to
show, that migrants during their long flights
may be directed by an experience partly in
herited and partly acquired by the individ-
ual bird. They often follow the coast line
of continents, and invariably take on their
passage over the Mediterranean, one of three
routes. But this theory will not explain
how they pilot themselves across broad
oceans, and is invalidated by the fact, ia
miliar to every ornithologist, that the old and
young birds do not Journey in company.
Invariably the young broods 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 reverse order.
The distance travelled seems, moreover, to
have no relation to the size of the traveller.
The Swedish blue throat performs its mate
rial functions among the Laps, and enjoys
its winter holidays among the negroes of
the Soudan, while the tiny, ruby-throated
leo to Newfoundland and back again,
though one would imagine that so delicate
little fairy would be more at home among
the cacti and sgaves of the Tierre Csliente
than among the frs and fogs of the north
London Standard.