346 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



route across the ocean. It nests way up here in the Arctic, along 

 the coast of the Arctic lands, then as soon as the young are full 

 grown, both the old and the young come out here to the coast of 

 Labrador. There is a berry there called the curlew berry which 

 grows in great profusion over the Labrador rocks. That bird is very 

 fond of them and the birds stay there several weeks, gorge them- 

 selves full and get ready for their great flight. Then they come 

 down across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, out here to Nova Scotia, and 

 then start on this straight flight across to the coast of South America. 

 It is about 2,400 or 2,500 miles that they fly, and they make that 

 entire trip without a stop, providing it Is good weather. 



I told you that the birds flying across the Gulf of Mexico made 

 the flight in a single night. But it would be impossible for the 

 golden plover to make that 2,500 miles in a single night, because 

 birds, when they are migrating, are not flying at their fastest, 

 probably about 40 or 50 miles an hour is as fast as they ever fly 

 m migration, and at 50 miles an hour it would require two whole 

 days and nights of flying to accomplish that. Just think what that 

 means, — flying continuously for two days and two nights without 

 a particle of rest. The plover is not a bird which could light down 

 on the surface of the ocean and then start again; it has got to 

 keep going continuously for that 48 hours. And yet we have reason 

 for thinking that the bird even in that long trip is not exhausted 

 because, if it was, it would not take it, it does not have to, it 

 could just as well go around by the coast but it takes that long 

 flight from preference. I had some curiosity to see how the plover 

 compared as a flying machine with the best that man has 

 yet been able to make in the form of an areoplr.ne. The fat 

 in the bird's body is the fuel that is burned up to make the force 

 that carries that bird on this long flight, and we know that that 

 plover has at the outside not more than two ounces of body fat 

 which is used by it for that 2,500 mile flight. Well, if an aeroplane 

 was as good a flying machine as the birds, then a thousand pound 

 aeroplane would need for making a 20 mile flight only one pint 

 of gasoline. 



I wrote to the officer at Fort Meyer who has charge of the TT. 

 S. army aeroplane and asked him what was the best that their 

 machines had yet been able to do, and he wrote back that 1,000 

 lb. aeroplane for 20 miles would require a gallon of gasoline; that 

 is a gallon for the machine as compared with a pint for the bird. 

 In other words, the bird is eight times as good a flying machine as 

 the best that man has been able so far to do. 



The golden plover has a migration route of about 8,000 miles, 

 but the one on the screen here now, the Arctic tern, has the longest 

 migration route of any bird in the world. It nests way up in the 

 Arctic; it is well called the Arctic tern because it nests just as far 

 north as there is anvthing solid on which it can build its nest, and 

 then it winters just as far south in the Antarctic as it can find 

 any open water from which it can get its food. It lives on fish, 

 so that no bird can have a longer migration route than the Arctic 

 tern. It is about 11,000 miles from its summer home to its winter 

 home, and it makes that round trip every year; that is approximately 

 22.000 miles a year, in its migration course. There is one little 

 thing that happens from that, that the Arctic tern sees more sun- 



