LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL 239 



around Muskeget Island, a few miles south, immense numbers of 

 brant congregate in the spring; they have been moving gradually 

 northward from their winter resorts, gaining in numbers, by picking 

 up those that have wintered farther north, as they went along. The 

 spring flight is leisurely and largely dependent on the weather and 

 the direction of the wind; cold, northerly, or easterly winds hold 

 them back: but warm days and favorable southwest winds are sure 

 to start them moving. Dr. Leonard C. Sanford (1903) has well 

 described the departure of the brant from the INIonomoy flats, which 

 usually takes place in the latter part of April, as follows : 



Some time in April comes a pleasant day, warm and sunny, with a southwest 

 wind. The several thousand brant in Chatham Bay feed greedily until the rising 

 tide removes their food from reach. Now they assemble in deep water in the 

 center of the bay, study the weather, and discuss the advisability of journey- 

 ing toward their summer home. Soon 15 or 20 birds take wing, fly back and 

 forth over the others, honking loudly, and circling ever higher until they have 

 reached a considerable altitude; then the long line swings straight, headed 

 northeast. Out over the beach, over the ocean it goes, and the birds in it 

 will not be seen again. Then another flock follows, taking exactly the same 

 course; flock after flock succeeds and the movement is kept up until dark. 

 You may sit in the blind next day or sail across the bay, you will see no brant 

 save a few stragglers ; branting is through for the year. ^ 



Up to this time the flight has been wholly coastwise, marshaling 

 the hosts for the main flight. But here there is apparently an oc- 

 casional, if not a regular, offshoot from the main flight, which 

 migrates overland from Long Island Sound to the St. Lawrence 

 River, for Dr. Louis B. Bishop (1921) writes: 



Prof. A. E. Verrill informed me that on May 17, 1914, he saw, with Mr. 

 G. E. Verrill, many flocks of brant flying north up the Housatonic Valley near 

 the mouth of the Housatonic River ; that most- were high in the air, but some 

 almost within gunshot ; also that he saw others flying northwest while at 

 Outer Island, Stony Creek, about May 22. 



But the main flight, when it leaves Cape Cod, flies northeastward 

 to the Bay of Fundy, across the neck of Nova Scotia to the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence, in the vicinity of Prince Edward Island. Here, 

 according to E. H. Forbush (1912) — 



about June 1 those in the district around Charlottetown (which probably com- 

 prise a great part of the Atlantic coast flight) begin to assemble in Hills- 

 borough Bay, outside of Charlottetown Harbor, on the south side of the island. 

 Here they gather, between St. Peters and Governors Island, in preparation 

 for their northern journey. From June 10 to 15 they leave in large flocks. 

 Sometimes four or five such flocks follow one another, about a mile apart. 



Richard C. Harlow writes to me that — 



during the last half of May the brant fairly swarm in the sheltered bays and 

 channels along the coast of Northumberland County, New Brunswick. Here 

 in certain favored places are channels from 1 to 5 miles wide, lying between 



