40 THE MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS 



Loons and cranes migrate regularly by day, as 

 do pelicans, shore-birds, gulls, and hawks. The 

 stirring bugle calls of the sandhill crane herald the 

 approach of flocks before they are actually within 

 view, and continue faintly to reach the ear long after 

 the birds have passed beyond the range of vision. 

 Flights of large hawks in the Middle West, in which 

 hundreds passed in wheeling flocks across the sky, 

 were common sights twenty years ago, but now are 

 rare because of the gradual extermination of these 

 fine birds. Red-tailed, Swainson's, and rough- 

 legged hawks travel regularly in bands through the 

 western region of plains and prairies, and at times 

 the turkey vulture may be seen migrating, in con- 

 siderable flocks. In the Eastern States sharp- 

 shinned and Cooper's hawks fly by day, but, though 

 often common, seldom associate in actual bands. 

 Nighthawks regularly, and various blackbirds occa- 

 sionally, migrate by day. 



The majority of small birds, the great hosts that 

 form the bulk of the migrant hordes that come to our 

 attention, travel by night. We wake in the morning 

 to find groves, hedges, and fields filled with a multi- 

 tude of warblers, flycatchers, and sparrows, which 

 on the following morning, may have largely dis- 

 appeared. Rails pursue the same secretive method 

 of travel as do cuckoos, migrant species of wood- 

 peckers, Old World warblers, vireos, and a host of 



