124 Bird - Lore 



this season, the migrants, or "spring travelers" and "summer neighbors," 

 are especially interesting. Looking over the birds' map of IS'orth America, 

 mountains, lakes, rivers, gulfs, plains and forests take on a new meaning, 

 for over and through and across them run unseen highways, frequented by 

 thousands of these feathered travelers. Strange dangers lurk along these 

 mysterious paths, where areas of plenty are broken by inhospitable and 

 foodless expanses. 



Birds can fly long distances, it is true, but, in order to accomplish such 

 journeys, they must be well supplied with food. As we have found, migrating 

 birds fly along certain favored routes. It is well to keep these routes in mind, 

 since it helps us to remember whence these birds come and where they go, and 

 what species may be expected in any given locality. 



Let us next make an outline of the different routes used by spring and 

 fall transients, marking each route with a figure, and placing the same after 

 the name of each species following that route. 



Principal Migration Routes of Birds in North America 



Atlantic Coast 

 Route 



3 



Mississippi Valley 



Route 



Route of the Plains 

 or Interior 



Pacific Coast 

 Route 



The birds traveling by route i are water-birds of powerful wing, which 

 fly long distances without stopping to feed, coming up from South America 

 to the far North. 



Route 2 is used by species wintering in the West Indies or the north- 

 eastern part of South America. These birds enter the United States through 

 Florida, keeping their course along the coast, or through the Middle States to 

 and beyond New England, southern Canada, and the distant Northwest. 



Route 3 is the great central highway for birds in America. It runs diag- 

 onally across the Gulf of Mexico from Central and South America, up through 

 the broad Mississippi Valley, which is near the dividing line between the humid 

 and arid parts of the country, on north, spreading out over central and north- 

 western British America, even into Alaska. 



The route marked 4, through the Great Plains or interior of the western 

 United States, is not so much traveled as either 2 or 3, and the same is true 

 of route 5, since fewer species follow the all-land paths from Mexico and 

 Central America northward. 



When we stop to think of the enormous distances between the winter 

 and the summer homes of many of our migratory species, the wonder of these 

 mysterious spring and fall journeys grows upon us. Although we are learning 

 something about how birds migrate, no one as yet knows why they migrate. 



The birds' map of America spreads itself out before our eyes, not divided 

 into states and territories, each marked by a capital city, with many or few 

 notable places, as geographies show — no, not at all like this! For the birds, 



