2 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



most of the Aleutian Islands is quite as far. Contrast this 

 with the distance from the lower coast of Georgia to the Gulf 

 of California (less than two thousand miles). Note also that 

 a line drawn across Mexico on the tropic of Cancer measures 

 less than six hundred miles. Such conditions are found in no 

 other continent. 



The position of South America is exactly the opposite in 

 relation to bird migration, for the apex of the triangle of that 

 continent lies toward the south pole and its base lies near 

 the equator; therefore, there could be no such congestion of 

 species caused by migration from the colder or southern parts 

 of that continent toward the equator as is found in North 

 America, when the birds that breed in the vast expanse of 

 the north migrate to the comparatively contracted southern 

 regions. 



The lands of the eastern hemisphere, taken as one large 

 continent, are wider toward the equator than toward the poles, 

 and no conditions are found there similar to those in North 

 America, except perhaps in China, Indo-China, the peninsula 

 of India and the Malay peninsula, in all of which a congestion 

 of species similar to that once found in North America prob- 

 ably occurs in the migration periods, but on a smaller scale. 



North America has an advantage over all other countries in 

 its great arctic breeding grounds, that offer extensive nesting 

 places and feeding grounds for water birds. A great archi- 

 pelago extends from the arctic coast of North America a thou- 

 sand miles toward the north pole, and the vast expanse of 

 Greenland lies to the eastward. On all these islands, great 

 and small, water-fowl may nest forever, unmolested by civil- 

 ized man. 



In the light of our present knowledge, it is not difficult to 

 imagine the great migration that annually occurred before the 

 continent was peopled by the whites. When the short arctic 

 summer drew to a close, — when the young birds had become 

 strong on the wing, — the great exodus from the northern seas 

 began. The Brant, which penetrated to the northernmost 

 parts of Greenland and Ellesmere Land, even to the far shores 

 of the Polar Sea, turned their faces to the south. As they 

 moved southward. Auks, Murres, Gulls, Old-squaws and other 



