192 THE MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS 



flushed a South American pintail from a pond at 

 the edge of the village where I was stopping. At 

 that season males of these ducks were travelling 

 about to some extent, and this and other individ- 

 uals, which arrived a day or so later, came to new 

 country as soon as local conditions had become 

 favorable to them. 



A northward flight through the interior of North 

 America is indicated in some ducks that come south 

 along the North Atlantic coast, as certain species 

 common in that section in autumn are almost ab- 

 sent in spring. 



In Europe, on the whole, it appears that ducks 

 make shorter flights in migration than in North 

 America since the extremes of northern climate are 

 not so great and the birds do not have so far to move 

 to find suitable wintering range. Records from 

 western Europe from pintails banded by Professor 

 H. C. C. Mortensen at the Island of Fano, on the 

 coast of Denmark, indicate that the birds migrated 

 south through the valley of the Rhine, and along 

 the Bay of Biscay south to the northern shores of 

 the Mediterranean Sea from Spain to Jugoslavia. 

 From this winter ground these birds passed north 

 in spring into Lapland, Finland, and northern Rus- 

 sia in the vicinity of Archangel. Their flights thus 

 covered almost as extensive a range as those of the 

 American pintail spreading from a centralized area 



