San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1883-03-01
The Migration OF Birds.

f"iniiiai ITO Inis migration of bids
is to us, there is perhaps no quest;o us
in zoology more obscure. The laUa
flights they take, and the unerr;nss
certainty with which they wing tba!s
way between the most distant placss i
arriving and departing at the Sans
period year after year, are points IL
the history of birds of passage a.
mysterious as they are interest;n%a'
We know that most migrants flv aitss.
shutdown, though many of them ss'
lect moonlight night to cross tbo
Mediterranean. But that their metz
geological instinct is not unerrinp i
proved by the fact that thousands ars
every year drowned in their Aiobt
over the Atlantic and other oceans
Northern Africa and Western Asia
are selected as winter quarters NV
most of them, and they may often bs
noticed on their way thither to bans
over towns at night, puzzled, in spitSe
of their experience, by the SHINING
lights of the streets and houses. The
swallow or the nightingale NAV he
delayed by unexpected circumstances
Yet it is rarely that they arrive OR de-.
part many days sooner or later, one
year from another.
Prof. Newton considered that were
they seafowl satellites REVOLVING
round the earth, their arrival could
hardly be more surely calculated BY
an astronomer. Foul weather or
fair, heat OF cold, the puffins repair
to some of their stations punctuallv
on a given day, as if their movements
were regulated by clock-work.
The swiftness of flight which char
acterizes most birds, enables them to
cover a vast space in brief time.
The common black swift can fly 276
miles an hour, a speed which, iii
could be maintained for less than
half a day, would carry the bird from
it's winter to its summer quarters.
The large purple swift of America is
capable of even greater feats on the
wing. The chimney swallow is slow.
er-ninety miles per hour being the
limit of its powers; but the passen-
ger pigeon of the United States can
accomplish journey Of one thou.
sand miles between sunrise and sun
set. 1t is also true, as the ingenious
Herr Palmer has attempted to show,
that migrants during theirlong fights
may be directed by an experience
partly inherited and partly acquired
by the individual 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 ex-
plain how they pilot themselves
across broad oceans, and is invali-
dated by the fact, familiar to every
ornlthologist, that the old and young
birds do notjourney in company.
Invariably the young broods travel
together; then come, alter an interval,
the parents; and finally the rear is
brought up by the weakly, infrm,
moultllng, and broken winged. This
is the rule in autumn. The return
journey is accomplished in the re-
versed order. The distance Travelled
seems, moreover, to have no relation
to the size of the traveller. The
Swedish blue throat performs its ma
terial functions among the Laps, and
enjoys it's winter holidays among
the negroes of the Soudan; while the
tiny, ruby-throated humming-bir
proceeds annually 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
Tierre Caliente than among the hrs
and fogs of the north.-London Stan
11rH