The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1905-08-24
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BIZ tie ERFoHli O. Or
Red EYED -

2PkfZZ LING eEt4 - ~ - E
ED9 ~ x ~
Noes ne BIy 4 Thousand Miles n =
sfnkIe NifsIlt = whore Does the
saTvsterfOus CIlIulney SWIFT Go Fer
rive Months out Of nvery Xearg
man who travels 10000 miles In
Year is counted a globe trotter" of IN
usual energy. But our common night
hryyk, that every American boy and
knsMs, thinks nothing Of having
sinmer home up IN Alaska and a win
tor resort In Argentina and travelling
the 1000 miles between twice a year.
It's annual trip often covers 115 DO
grees OF latitude,
And some OF our shore birds, a gov
ernment naturalist tells US, are sun
more inveterate voyagers, making eA-
ira flights and covering 10000 miles or
so year.
fimes extremely rapid transit. The
eI1rn1ner warbler that spends the win
.41T, IN Central America and the nesting
Eeason at Great Slave lake, far up In
the arctic. travels twice as fast as the
spring does One hundred ana sixteen
miles day is the record so Tar to
Great Slave lake. the speed always m
creasins as the birds move northward.
~ tourist in comparison with some 9TH
er species. 1t never does more than
seventy miles day. The average rate
for ali migrating birds from GSevV Or
leans to Minnesota ia about twenty
three miles day. But after leaving
minnesota several species of feathered
migrants make first 40. then II and
IanaIIy $50 miles day before they
reach Alaska.
The bird traveller that gives the nat
uralist the hardest transportation
problem to solve is the red eyed vireo.
1t winters In Central America and ap-
spears eaci. spring at the mouth Of the
mississippi, travelling twenty miles
day. At this leisurely rate 1t proceeds
for six weeks, all the way up to the
latitude of northern Nebraska. Then
suddenly, in the space of twenty-four
hours and before single red eyed
Vfreo has been seen anywhere In the
region between, numbers Of the birds
appear In British Columbia, thousand
miles to the northwest.
This puzzling performance is repeat
ed every year. Unless the red eyed
vfreo flies thousand miles in single
night. how docs It manage this be-
EiIdering schedule2
Nobody knows, but then nobody
knows either where the chimney swift
gees for five months out of every year.
Great hocls of chimney swifts, with
numberless hedglings among them
leave the United States every autumn
Their movements can be easily follow
ed till their various migrating bands
foin into a countless host on the north
ern coast of the gulf of Mexico One
day they are there; the next day they
nre-nowhere.
Five months later, in March, Joyful
twittering far up In the air heralds
their temperance on the same spot,
plump and brisk after their winter so
journ. But where the winter has been
spent only the swifts know. 1t used
to- be a tradition (made out Of whole
cloth'D that they hibernated in the
mud. But that merely showed the
hopeless attitude of mems minds to-
ward the problem. for no swift was
ever found In the mud in any known
spot. What mud? Where? was there
fore the natural question, never an
syvered, and leaving the mystery deep
Grand muddier-than ever.
The golden plover. too, has yearly
schedule of travel known to the nat
uralist in every detail.
In June it reaches the barren
grounds" far In the arctic circle. where
Csreely found these bird voyaEers as
far north Ms latitude 81 degrees. The
nests are built on the moss, close above
5he frozen ground; the young are rear.
ed. and then the docks hasten to Lab
rador In August. wi:sre The crowberry
crows for their benefit so thickly that
when they leave the feasting place IN
the fall their bodies are plump almost
TO bursting, and their very flesh IL
stained red with the crimson juice OF
the berries they have eaten.
They strike straight for the Antilles
and for South America beyond, more
than $500 miles in all. The plover can
swim. however, and rest on the oceau
wave and on the way down it fire.
ouently feeds In the Sargasso sea
where, far out in the Atlantic, thou
sands OF square miles of seaweed teen
with marine life
After resting a few weeks in the
Antilles the plover starts afresh, this
fine for Patagonia ana southern Ar
Qentina. Unlike other birds, it puts
~ whole mind to travelling and flies
both night and day. Six months IN
patagonia, and then back 1t travels &c
.tlle arctic by way of Guatemala, Texas
and the Mississippi. The whole yenrly
route forms a great, irregular ellipse
1000 miles long and 5000 miles across
Il its widest point. Surely, marvellous
9s-were the stories about the migration
a. birds believed by the ignorant in
eariv unscIentIdc times. the truth Is, as
usual, stranger than hctiOn.-Youth's