Saturday news. (Watertown, S.D.) 19??-19??, 1915-04-01
Golden Ployer King
Of Migratory Birds

Washington, d. C.-There is an
aerial machine far more economical
OF energy than the best aeroplane in.
vented, and that is the bird known as
the golden plover, This bird. accord-
ing to the United States Department
OF Agricnlture's new bulletin on Bird
Migration" can fly 2,400 miles with
out a stop, making the trip in not
quite 4S hours, and using only two
ounces of fuel in the shape of body
fat.
A thousand-pound aeroplane, If as
economical of fuel, would consume
in a 20-mile flight not the gallon of
gasoline required by the best ma
chimes, but only a single pint.
The fact that the screw propeller
of the aeroplane has no lost motion,
while the to-and-fro motion OF the
birds wings appears to be an uneco-
nomical way of applying power
makes the fact regarding fuel seem
even more strange.
Even the little humming bird can
do better than the aeroplane, for in
its migration across the Gulf of Mex
leo it flies owe 500 miles in a single
night. Nearly all birds, in fact, show
in their soaring and sailing that they
are proficient in the use OF several
factors in the art of flying that have
not yet been mastered either in prin-
ciple or practice by the most skillful
of modern aviators. A yulture or a
crane, after a few preliminary wing
beats, sets its wings and mounts in
wide sweeping circles to a great
height, overcoming gravity with no
exertion apparent to human vision
even when assisted by the most pow
erful telescope.
The Carolina rail, or sora, has
small, short wings apparently i'll I'D
apted to protracted flight, and ordin-
arily when forced to fly does SO re-
luctantly and alights as soon as pos,
sible. 1t flies with such awkward
ness and apparently becomes so
quickly exhausted that at least n
writer has been led to infer that most
OF its migration must be made on
foot; the facts are, however, that the
Carolina rail has one of the longest
migration routes of the whole rail
family and easily crosses the wide
breaches Of the Caribbean Sea,
The popular belief that birds under
ordinary circumstances find ocean
flight wearisome, and that after Ia
boring with tired wings across the
seemingly endless waste they sink
exhausted on reaching land, is dis
proven by facts, according to the new
bulletin.
1t seems rather that the powers Of
locomotion with which nature has en-
dowed many birds are so wonderful
that under normal conditions they
can easily cross the Gulf of Mexico
! at its widest point and even pass
without pause over the low, swanpy
coastal plain to the higher territory
beyond. So little averse r birds to
an ocean flight that many fly from
eastern Texas to the gulf coast of
southern Mexico, though this 400
miles OF water journey hardly short
ems the distance OF travel by ar hours
flight, Thus birds avoid the hot,
treeless plains and scant ~provender
of southern Texas by a direct flight
from the moist, insect-teeming forests
of northern Texas to a similar coun-
try in southern Mexico.
Everybody knows that birds when
they migrate in the fall generally go
SOUTH but knowledge is seldom more
specific. The departments new bull
letin brings out the fact that while
some birds go to Florida or the West
indies or Mexico, others such as the
bobolink and rice bird go as for south
as Paraguay and the southern part
OF Brazil.
Much has been learned about bird
migration, but much yet remains to
be learned, and the following Is one
OF the most curious and interesting
OF the unsolved problems. The chin
ney swift Is one OF the most abundant
and best known birds of the eastern
United States. With troops Of fedg.
lings, catching their prey as they 30,
and lodging by night in tall chin.
news, the focks drift slowly south,
Joining with other bands, until on the
northern coast OF the Gulf of Mexico
they become an innumerable host.
Did they drop into the water or
hibernate In the mud, as was believed
Of old, their obliteration could not
be more complete. In the last week
in March d joyful t%wittering far over
head announces their return to the
gulf coast, but their hiding place dur.
ing the intervening five months Is
still the swift's secret.