The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-09-22
From the New York Sun.


 .66 6UsT look at those myriads of
 English sparrows," exclaimed
 " g. passenger on trolley car crossing a stretch of park and pond not far from the Palisades. T hate to see them starting south so soon. because it means hard winter"
 "Sparrows nothing" laughed his companion, those are swallows. And in the first place those particular swallows are not migrating yet" con- tinued the man in the other seat. who happened to be member of the Au- dubon society.
 Tn the second place, it wouldn't mean a hard winter if they were wouldn't mean anything that any fellow can find out with certainly except, perhaps, that their food sup ply of insects may be less plentiful in these parts than usual, which might easily happen after such a dry sum mer"
 "But they were all clustered to- gether as if they were going to start on a journey" argued the first pas senger.
 "That place is one of their roosts in this part of New Jersey" replied the amateur ornithologist, and Il forms a training ground for prelimi- nary maneuvers and practice flights before the big trek, a station on the journey for those from further north and a mobilization camp for swallows that have spent the summer along the Palisades and Riverside drive.
 "It's true, however, that some of the migrating this month has been earlier than usual. The myrtle warbler ar rived in these parts from his breed ing grounds in Connecticut and Rhode Island in the middle of last month, a whole month ahead of his regular schedule.
 why? Nobody knows. and orni- biologists never guess. It may be that the bayberries are not as plen- tiful as usual up in Maine this fall Maybe the natives are gathering them for bay rum or some other kind of rum. That would be hard lines for the myrtle warbler as he's the only vegetarian member of the large and interesting warbler family, and he de- bends largely on bayberries for his diet. His breeding range is from Maine to Panama, and he's as likely as not to stick around here all the winter" "There's great big flock ot robins" exclaimed the bird fans com | panion.
 Quite family" admitted the bire man. "Second breods are pretty nifty on the wing now. However, they don't have very far to go. The robins the red winged blackbirds and the grackles just move down south q lit tie way without any fuss, and the ones you see are liable to be hopping or the White House lawn at Christmas But the biggest part of the bire migration that goes on at this time | of year is the part you don't see I There's a busy lane of travel up 1T the sky, with no traffic cops to regu- l late it. September is the big month on that highway. There's no way tc take a census of 1t. but you can tel by listening on clear night to the little voices of the air travellers. and you can tell by the numbers that dash l themselves to death against light houses, and you can tell by taking 6 photograph against the moon." "Is that so, on the level?" inquired ! the first passenger.
 "On the level" answered the birt fan. the thing has been done by pr F. M Chapman of the American Mu' scum of Natural History. He focused i low-power telescope on the ful
 moon to get background agains which the migrating birds would 'o' silhouetted, and almost 300 of then were seen to cross that small space in three hours. He estimates that mi .. grating birds can travel from 200 t 400 miles in one night. but their gen eral progress is much slower, as thel halt at favorable feeding grounds ant make a fairly leisurely pilgrimage.
 Like the ocean steamship, they fol low regular lanes of travel, aloni ocean coasts. river valleys and noun tain ranges. One of the wonders Q 1 their performances is that tiny song sters should be able to cross grea bodies of water like the Gulf of Mex leo and the Mediterranean. The vel I low, warbler and the blackpoll hay been traced as far south as Peru, ! Between now and the end of Sep