134 WITH THE U. S. NATURALISTS 



hours of daylight in fledgeling time, that means 

 nearly three hundred meals a day for the little 

 ones, not counting the food needed for the two 

 providers. It is safe to say that a bird has got to 

 find a meal in every two minutes during the season 

 of feeding the- young. 



*'So, you see, it is. better for the birds to leave 

 civilized haunts and go to wilder regions where 

 man has not intruded and where the forests have 

 not been cut down. When the North American 

 birds go to Ungava, Keewatin and the Mackenzie 

 Eiver Valley or to the tundra that stretches north 

 to the shores of the Arctic Ocean, or when the 

 European birds go to Northern Siberia, they are 

 sure to find a region of incredible fertility and 

 vast stores of food. 



**For eight months, it is true, the inhospitable 

 tundra which lies between the northern forests 

 and the frozen ocean is completely buried under 

 a blanket of snow from six to ten feet thick. The 

 expanse is unbroken, save for the occasional track 

 of a caribou or an Arctic fox. For two months 

 in midwinter the sun never rises above the hori- 

 zon, there is no light save moonshine, starshine 

 and the flickering of the aurora borealis reflected 

 on the ice. There are no birds there, then. 



