The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1905-08-02
THE IRA Yelling BIRD
PERFORMANCE OF THE
RED EYED WERo.


A man who travels 10000 miles in
year is counted a globe trotter" OF I'M
usual energy. But our cOmmoni nlght-
hawk, that every American boy ana
Girl knows. thinks nothing OF having a
summer home up in Alaska ana WIN
ter resort in Argentina and travelling
tIle 1000 miles between twice year.
Its annual trip often covers 10 oe-
grecs of latitude.
And some OF our shore birds, gov
eminent naturalist tells us, are still
more Inveterate voyagers, making eX-
ira flights and covering 10000 miles or
SO n year.
voynging by the air line is some
times extremely rapid transit. The
summer warbler that spends the win
ter in Central America and the nesting
season Mt Great Slave lake, far up In
the arctic, travels twice as fast as inc
spring does. One hundred and sixteen
miles n day is the record so FAR to
Great Slave lake, the speed always III
creasIng as the birds move northward.
The robin IS an old fashioned, leisure
~ tourist in comparison with some 9th
er species. 1t never does more than
seventy miles a day. The average rate
for all migrating birds from New Or
leans to Minnesota is about twenty
three miles day. But after leaving
Minnesota several species Of feathered
migrants make first 40, then u and
finally $50 miles a day before they
reach Alaska.
The bird traveller that gives the nat
uralist the hardest transportation
problem to solve is the red eyed vireo.
It winters in Central America and ap
pears each spring Mt the mouth of the
Mississippi. travelling twenty miles a
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
vIreo has been seen anywhere in the
region between, numbers of the birds
appear in British Columbia, thousand
miles to the northwest.
This puzzlinR performance Is repeat
ed every year. Unless the red eyed
vireo flies thousand miles in single
night, how does it manage this be
wiIdering schedule?
Nobody knows, but then nobody
knows either where the chimney swift
goes for five months out of every year.
Great hocks of chimney swifts, with
numberless lodgings among them.
leave the United States every autumn
Their movements can be easily follow
ed till their various migrating bands
Join into a countless host on the north
ern coast OF the gulf OF Mexico. One
day they are there; the next day they
are-nowhere.
Five months later, in March, Joyful
twIttering far up in the afr heralds
their temperance on the same spot
plump and brisk after their winter SO
E9V1+ Hrs1rn no HE-iTfaP has hnnT
spent only the swifts know. 1t used
to be II tradition made out Of whole
cloth'O that they hibernnted 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
swered. and leaving the mystery deep
Grand muddier-than ever.
The golden pIover, too, has yearly
schedule of travel known to the nat
uralist in every detail.
In June it reaches the barren
grounds far in the nrctIc circle. where
Greedy found these bird voyaEers as
far north as latitude 81 degrees The
nests are built on the moss, close above
the frozen ground: the young are rear
ed, and then the focks hasten to Lab
rador In August. where the crowberry
grows for their benefit so thickly that
when they leave the feQstinE place in
the fall their bodies are plump almost
to bursting, and their very flesh is
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 ocean
wave, and on the way down it fire.
quentIy 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
time for Patagonia ana southern Ar
gentIna. Unlike other birds, 1t puts
its whole mind to travelling and flies
both night and day. six months in
Patagonia, and then back 1t travels to
the arctic by way OF Guatemala, Texas
and the Mississippi. The whole yearly
route forms n great, irregular ellipse,
5000 miles long ana 5000 miles across
at It's widest point. Surely, marvellous
MS were the stories about the migration
of birds believed by the Ignorant in
early unscientiic times. the truth is, as
usual, stranger than fiction.-Youth's
Companion.