The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1892-04-14
WINGED WANDERERS.
Whore the Beautiful Wild Birds
Go to Pass tho Winter.
Some of the AIRLINE Isoutes OF Travel
Followed Curious. Instincts Of tho
fcaihercJ songstcrs-Uusuc-
cessiui Experiments.

In the corrse Of the lest fifty years /.
considerable number of European SOM
birds have been turned loose in tn,
woods and gardens Of the new world
but, with rare exceptions. they all dis
appeared before the end of the secont
winter, says q writer in the San Fran
cisco Chronicle. Only four out of fifty
English larks brought to Maryland il
1879 were seen the next spring. and ne
nightingale has as yet managed to sur
vivc an American blizzard
The failure Of those experiments
may, however, be due to the circum.
stance that the assisted immigrants
were taken to the wrong side of the
Rocky mountains. Like the Gascon
farmer who hoped to find the climate oi
southern France in southern Michigan,
they owed their ruin to misapplica.
| ton OF geographical facts trip OF
six hundred miles will carry a British
bird to an almost win.erless zone.
The birds of our Pacific coast forests,
on the other hand, have no cause To
envy their European relatives. The
| pine thrush of British Columbia passes
the winter in Mendocno county, and
has been seen as far south as Lake Ma
jella in the redwoods of Monterey, but
most Of our California wood birds man.
age to dispense with lengthy winter
migration. Thrushes stick to the tim
bcr zone, and our woodpcc!sers rarely
stray beyond the hills Of Napa county.
Our California bluebirtls, however, love
sunshine too much to enjoy the winters
OF the timber counties" and are apt TO
get rather numerous on Monterey bay
after the end Of October.
The migratory birds OF the eastern
states have a curious habit OF following
established routes of travel Countless
thousands of water birds for instance,
cross the Mexican border nenr the
mouth OF the Rio Grandc, probably to
avoid the broad sand wastes that skirt
the upper river valley. Farther east
there is braclsish estuary almost de-
void OF islands. SO that the lagoons of
the delta affcrd the only convenient
resting place for legions of swamp-lov-
ing wanderers. A similar bird trap is
found in low gap of the Sierra Nevada
near the eastern border of Plumas
county. The fcsthered inhabitants of
Colorado and Nevada could reach the
tropics only by a two Thousand mile
trip across barren table-lands without
water and wood, SO some Of them have
found it the best plan to follow
Horace Greclcy's advice and enioy
tho comforts of protracted Indian
summer by going west
A few species of eastern woodbirds
come to grief in trying to pass the win
ter in the southern Alleghanies. Robins,
for instance, flock by thousands to the
hill country of eastern Alabama, where
they fit about the woods in quest of
cedar berries and are killed in such
numbers that in the course Of years
they will become as scarce as the trav.
cling pigeons Of the Mississippi valley.
Some OF our, shy woodbirds avoid hu.
man habitations in their wanderings,
but the wisest so where gunpowder is
dear and pass the winter in the swamp
forests of Yucatan, or even farther
south. in the painless woods Of Guiana
and eastern Brazil A Belgian noble
man once managed to catch two hun.
dred stor,ss and labeled every one of
them with a piece of paste board giving
the address OF the eyperimenter and re-
questing to inform him where the bird
had been, caught or killed during the
winter season. These curious passports
were attached in q conspicuous manner
to the neck or leg of the birds, and one
OF them returned next spring with
message to the effect that he had been
caught In meadow near Sidi Belbez,
In western Algeria. Two years after
another OF the original tickets came
back by mail with a note stating that
the winged messenger had been shot ut
Fort George. near the mouth of the
Senegal
Cranes. storks and wild geese fly fast
enough to make the trip from northern
Europe to Africa In week. but most of
them take a midway rest north of the
Mediterranean. The reed swamps Of
the Guadiana river, in northern Spain,
are all alive with migratory birds in
and the waterfowl Of north
ern Russia winter on the shores Of the
Caspian, where snowstorms may occur
now and tLeu, but where water-birds
nre, on the whole, much better off than
Oh the desert coasts farther south.
A few years ago the owner Of o river
side farm in southern Indiana pub
ished report which seemed TO prove
hat, for a few weeks at least, birds of |
certain species are apt to hibernate,
ike bats and squirrels. A number Of
aborers had been clearing patch of
wood at the river shore and came across
several martins or chimney swallows
hat had taken refuge in hollow syco.
more tree and appeared numb or half
lead with cold, bat on being brought TO
warm room revived and fluttered
bout the windows Us II nothing had
No similar fact has, how.
ver. been reported by competent OBJ