76 THE RIDDLE OF MIGRATION 



tionally we would arrange to flee from impending 

 cold and starvation and spend the winter where 

 winters are pleasant and food is plentiful. 



But a bird goes neither to school nor college; it 

 has no libraries nor navigating instruments ; it knows 

 nothing about the experiences of others; yet it 

 reaches its predestined winter quarters with the 

 sureness that we would. Accidents might befall 

 in either case. It is obvious in fact that in trying 

 to explain the southward passage of birds we cannot 

 do so in terms of human behaviour. We must find 

 an explanation that involves neither human in- 

 telligence, deliberate intention nor the conscious 

 use of the experience of others. 



It has been assumed times without number that 

 young birds find their road south by accompanying 

 their parents or even members of other species ; that 

 they are, in fact, guided south. In some cases the 

 young do stay with their parents and probably com- 

 plete their entire migration in company, but such 

 cases are no more frequent than those that undoubt- 

 edly do not. The assumption that some other 

 species provides the guidance is the merest assump- 

 tion. The young cowbirds of Alberta, hatched and 

 fed by foster-parents of some thirty different species, 

 do not spend the winter scattered all over the south 

 as would be the case if they accompanied the birds 



