28 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 



while other miUions diverge into the larger tributary valleys, such as the 

 Arkansas, IMissouri, Ohio and Wisconsin. Shorter but equally popular 

 valleys are those of the Connecticut, the Hudson, the Potomac, the Susque- 

 hanna and the Genessee, every one of which is noted for its throngs of mi- 

 grants both spring and fall. 



The larger Michigan rivers all trend rather east and west than north and 

 south anci perhaps for that reason no one of them seems to have acquired 

 fame as a migration route. True the Detroit and St. Clair rivers form a 

 famous route for waterfowl, and it is no uncommon thing for ducks, geese, 

 swans and gulls to pass Detroit in large numbers, flock often following flock 

 in seemingly endless procession. Yet apparently Detroit is avoided by the 

 greater throngs of land birds, the main stream of migrants passing some 

 twenty miles east of the city, and one branch of this stream entering the 

 state at Port Huron and flowing northward along the Huron shore, across 

 the mouth of Saginaw Bay and eventually across the head of Lake Huron 

 and the eastern end of the Upper Peninsula, into the relatively unknown 

 regions of northern Ontario. 



Doubtless most Michigan migrants arriving from the south enter the state 

 directly from Ohio or Indiana, and according to the generally accepted theories 

 many of them, if from the far south, have come up the Mississippi valley 

 to the mouth of the Ohio River, followed this valley to the northeast and as- 

 cended some one of the tributary valleys from the north, — the Wabash, Miami, 

 Scioto, etc., to the sources of these streams, and then ])y the Maumee, San- 

 dusky and Huron rivers to Lake Erie or to the Ohio-Michigan line. Birds 

 arriving on the Lake Erie shore at or east of Sandusky are known to cross 

 the western end of Lake Erie by a route which takes them over Kelly and 

 Pelee islands, as stepping stones, to Point Pelee in Ontario, a long, sandy, 

 partly wooded point which stretches out nearly ten miles into Lake Erie. 

 Continuing this journey northward from the point part of the migrants pass 

 up the eastern shore of Lake Huron (Georgian Bay), while the remainder, 

 as already noted, proceed directly north to the southern end of Lake Huron, 

 crossing then into IMichigan territory and proceeding northward along the 

 western shore of Lake Huron. 



Possibly the Wabash Valley column may supply most of the migrants 

 which enter southwestern ]Michigan, while those which use the Miami and 

 Scioto valleys reach southeastern Michigan, or cross Lake Erie by the Pelee 

 route, but it must be remembered that by no means all migrants follow river 

 valleys, and especially in regions like the Indiana-Ohio-]\Iichigan area, where 

 the country is comparatively flat and everywhere well watered, there is every 

 reason to beheve that little use is made of the streams in directing the birds 

 northward. 



It should also be clearly understood that there is certainly a well marked 

 migration, both northward and southward, through Ohio and Indiana which 

 is entirely independent of the ]\Iississippi and Ohio valleys, the birds coming 

 directly over the mountains from the South Atlantic and Gulf states to the 

 Ohio valley, and very possibly completing their northward movement without 

 any reference to the direction of water courses. 



It has been commonly assumed that land birds would prefer not to cross 

 large bodies of water if they can be conveniently avoided, but while this may 

 be true of birds migrating by day, it is certainly not true of all nocturnal 

 migrants, and the records of birds killed at hghthouses, both along the sea- 

 coast and on the Great Lakes, makes it pretty clear that very many species 

 are quite indifferent as to whether their course lies over land or watei". We 



