122 



Bird - Lore 



Homing Pigeons, which can be timed from one place to another, or in the Ducks and 



Geese, whose conspicuous -flocks, traveling high over cities and towns, can be easily 



followed. The championship speed for 

 Homing Pigeons has been recorded as 

 55 miles an hour for a period of four 

 hours. A Great Blue Heron has been 

 timed by a motorcyclist keeping directly 

 below it and found to be 35 miles an 

 hour. A flock of migrating Geese has 

 been found to be traveling at a speed 

 of 44.3 miles per hour and a flock of 

 Ducks at 47.8 miles. The speed of 

 smaller birds is usually less, although 

 when they mount high in the air and 

 start on their migratory flight, they 

 doubtless fly faster than the birds one 

 so often passes flying parallel to a pas- 

 senger train or a suburban car. 



The vast majority of birds migrate 

 during the night; some migrate both 

 by day and by night; others only by 

 day. The latter are, for the most part, 

 birds that find their food in the open 

 and can feed as they travel. Such are 

 the Robin, the Kingbird, and the Swal- 

 lows. Other birds like the Sparrows, 

 Vireos, Warblers, and marsh birds, 

 that find their food among the trees 

 or in dense vegetation, migrate entirely 

 by night. The necessity for this is 



shown when they arrive at the Gulf of Mexico or other large body of water where it is 



impossible to get food of any kind. If they started early in the morning, so as to be 



across by night, they would not be able to get 



much food before starting, and by the time they 



reached the other side, it would be dark and 



again impossible to feed. Thus an interval of 



thirty-six hours would elapse without food, a 



period that might result disastrously for many 



birds because of their high rate of metabolism. 



If, however, they spend the day feeding and 



migrate by night, their crops are full when they 



start, and, when they arrive at the other side, 



it is daylight and they can begin immediately 



to glean their living. 



During these night migrations birds are 



attracted by any bright, steady light, and every 



year hundreds and thousands dash themselves 



to death against lighthouses, high monuments, 



and buildings. When the torch in the Bartholdi 



Statue of Liberty was kept lighted, as many as 



700 birds in a month were picked up at its base. 



On some of the English lighthouses, where bird 



THE BOBOLINK NEAR ITS NEST WITH 

 FOOL FOR ITS YOUNG 



MIGRATION OF THE BOBOLINK 

 The Bobolink summers in the northern 



states and winters chiefly in northern 



Argentina. (From Cooke.) 



