WHAT GUIDES BIRDS DURING THEIR MIGRATIONS ? 133 



When, however, we see, what has been lully discussed in a pre- 

 vious chapter, that these lines of migration to the north of many 

 species are crossed simultaneously by flocks of other species travel- 

 ling in an easterlj' direction, this attempt at an explanation 

 of the question will hardly appear sufficient. Yon Middeudortf 

 himself did not fail to observe that many birds follow directions 

 other than towards the north, and he endeavours to maintain the 

 validity of his view by stating ' that birds are persistently conscious 

 of the directions m which the magnetic poles lie, as well as of 

 the angle of deviation of their flight at the time being from these 

 directions, and that they regulated their course accordinglj'. Thus, 

 while the sailor has to find his course by calculation, the bird, in 

 itself a complete magnet, marks out its path directly from the 

 chart of its own inner consciousness.' According to this idea, then, 

 the bird does not, like the sailor, act according to calculation, but in 

 response to some inner unconscious state of sensation or intuitive 

 knowledge which, after all, amounts to the same thing as instinct. 

 Moreover, this view of a ' magnetic sense ' ajjplies only to the 

 spring migration, and it still remains difficult to see how young 

 autumn birds, at the outset of their first migratory journey, can 

 possibly know the angle at which their winter quarters in the south 

 are situated in relation to the pole. 



Yon Middendorff has, however, attempted to endow bii'ds with 

 an additional qualification for rinding their migration routes, by 

 crediting them with the possession of what he calls a ' sense of 

 direction' (RichfKinn). He says that they are by nature conscious 

 of the quarters of the heavens, and able to find their way without 

 the aid of the sense of sight or local memory. This, however, is 

 merely another name for a capacity previously ascribed to the 

 magnetic sense, and tells us no more about the fact itself than that 

 it is the result of an inner unconscious state of sensibility. 



We must here mention another highly interftsting observation 

 of Professor von Middendorff's, from which it appears that man in 

 a primitive state of nature is likewise possessed of a kind of 

 instinctive capacity for finding the right way, similar to the faculty 

 peculiar to birds and other animals. 



He expresses himself to this effect in his Sibirische Reise 

 {Siberian Voyage), vol. iv. Part ii. p. 1168, as follows : — 



' I have never been struck so forcibly by experiences of this 

 nature, as in the endless Tundras of the extreme north, where I 

 discovered this incomprehensible animal peculiarity present in 

 almost undiminished strength in rude and uncivilised men livinsr 

 in a state of nature. The capabilities of the Samoyedes in this 

 direction often exceed all our ideas on this subject. 



