The Believing Years

wn of history. We wonder at the compelling force that drove our ancestors through the forests of northern Germany, or caused the Aztecs to cross the Mexican deserts. It

shoals into the abysmal depths. There are butterflies that in companies rise from mud puddles beside the road and go dancing away to the South in autumn. The caribou, in long streams, come southward over the barrens of Labrador when the word is passed, and even squirr

a very common bird in the eastern United States in certain seasons. Where is the scientist who can yet tell us in what country the common Chimney Swift passes the winter, or over what stretches of sea and land the Arctic Tern passes when

s all at once. The feathers drop out gradually from the various feather tracts over the body, and their places are at once taken by a new growth. While this is going on the birds are less in e

where they secure their food, they are not left in the helpless, even desperate, condition in which a land bird would find itself if unable to fly. In a

summer sojourn. Cold weather alone would not drive all of them southward, else why do many small birds pass the winter in northern latitudes where severe climatic conditions prevail? Should we assume the failing food supply to be the sol

. Photographed in the yard of Mrs. Gr

rd and the birds were forced to flee before it or starve. Now and then during the subsequent period the ice receded and the birds returned, only to be driven again before the next onrush of the Ice King. Thus during these centuries of alternate

erve an unwonted restlessness on the part of our birds which tells us that they have begun to hear the call of the South. The Blackbirds assemble in flocks and drift aimlessly about the fields. E

late summer evenings, and for many days one may see them from the car windows as they glide through the upper air or swarm

ey whirl about over the tops of the houses, alight in the trees, and then almost immediately dash upward and away again. Not till dark do they finally settle to roost. Until late at night a great chorus of voices may be heard among the branches. The multitude increases d

uch birds migrate chiefly at night and have been observed through telescopes at high altitudes. Such observations are made by pointing the telescope at the disk of the full moon on clear nights. On cloudy or foggy nights the birds fly l

tion of these avian highways, we know at least that the coastlines of the continents are favourite routes. Longfellow, in the valley of the Charles, lived be

long sustained, a hundred and fifty miles a day being above the average. Individuals will at times pause and remain for a few days in a favourable locality before proceeding farther. When large bodies of water are encountered longer flights are of course necessary, for land birds cannot rest on the water as their feathers would soon become water-soaked and drowning would result. Multitud

autumn, come the flocks of Ducks and Geese that in winter darken the Southern sounds and lakes. One stream moves down the Pacific Coast, another follows the Mississippi Valley to the marshes of Louisiana and Te

s of Some North

and these same birds pass the winter seven thousand miles south of their summer home. One of these wonderful migrants is the Golden Plover. In autumn the birds leave eastern North America at Nova Scotia, striking out boldly across the Atlantic Ocean, and they may not again sight land until they reach the West Indies or the northern coast of South America. Travelling, as they do, in a straight line, they ordinarily pass eastward of the Bermuda Islands. Upon reaching South America, after a flight of two thousand four

late Wells W. Cooke, America's greatest authority on bird migration, is the Arctic Tern. P

the conditions under which it breeds that the first nest found by man in this region, only seven and one-half degrees from the pole, contained a downy chick surrounded by a wall of newly fallen snow th

ornithologists competent to indicate their preferred route and their time schedule. The Arctic Terns arrive in the Far North about June fifteenth and leave about August twenty-fifth, thus staying fourteen weeks at the nesting site. They probably spend a few weeks longer in the winter than in the sum

during their entire stay at the breeding grounds. During two months of their sojourn in the Antarctic the birds do not see a sunset, and for the rest of the time the sun dips only a little way below the horizon

e showed me a chipped place in the lens which he said had been made by the bill of a great white Gannet which one thick night crashed through the outer protecting glass of the lighthouse lamp. As many as seven hundred birds in one month have killed themselves by flying against the Bartholdi Statue of

m the engine platform beneath. Birds seem rarely to lose their sense of direction, and they pursue their way for hundreds of miles across the trackless ocea

ause the Deat

e, or have been injured by striking telephone or telegraph wires, an accident which often happens. Once I picked up a Loon after a stormy night. Apparently it had recovered its strength after a few hours' rest, but, as this

eary bodies. One morning in northern Lake Michigan I found a Connecticut Warbler lying dead on the deck beneath my stateroom window after a stormy night of wind and rain. Overt

ellow-billed Cuckoo. We also encountered three flocks of Bobolinks, which for some distance flew beside the ship. They appeared to be lost, for they all left us finally, flying straight ahead of the

g Birds Often

long series of years. As a result of this carefully gathered material, with the addition of many data collected from other sources, there is now on file in Washington an immense volume of valuable information, much of which, in condensed printed form, is obtainable by the public. This work was in charge of Professor Wells W. Cooke, Biologist, in the Biological Survey of the United States Department of

Rhinebeck, New York. The glass sides prevent the seeds f

irds may be obtained free, or at slight cost, by addressing H. W. Hensh