122 



THE OSPEEY. 



tempting to add to our stock of scientific 

 knowledge, or betraying any special power of 

 careful observation. He is simply seeking for 

 the appropriate vehicle to convey to us in 

 pleasing form some poetic ideas of his own. 

 For a Cambridge resident, so near the coast 

 line, along which the great migrating' armies 

 of the water birds move, no observation on his 

 part would be necessary to obtain the few 

 facts on which to base the references to birds 

 in his lines. It would be a matter of local 

 information known to any and all of the coast 

 dwellers, and indeed, those much farther in- 

 land. His line — 



"A warm soft vapor fills the air" — 

 can hardly be distorted into a statement as 

 to the atmospheric conditions most favorable 

 to migration, since the fight must have begun 

 hundreds of miles further north, in a region 

 totally different. 



But the best evidence of the unscientific na- 

 ture of the poem is to be seen from the lines: 



"I hear the beat 



Of their pinions fleet." 



Does Longfellow mean to tell us that the 

 wing strokes of migrating birds are audible 

 to an observer upon the earth? Is he not 

 rather referring to the sound of the wings of 

 the low-flying water fowl of the locality as 

 they move about in search of food or resting 

 places? The absurdity of ascribing scientific 

 value to a poem of this kind must be appar- 

 ent to all. 



But if the poet had really wished to find 

 poetic expression for something surpassingly 

 marvelous in nature, he could hardly choose 

 a richer field than this. There is scarcely a 

 sing'le phenomenon in animal life having 

 greater possibilities alike for the scientist and 

 the poet. I*\)r the former the economic value 

 of birds, their wonderfiU adaptation of organs 

 to environment, their unusually hig'h menial 

 endowments, all make their semi-annual mi- 

 gration a matter of the greatest scientific im- 

 portance, full of unsolved problems. The 

 poet, on the other hand, is appealed to on the 

 aesthetic side. The song, color and motion of 

 birds display a beauty unique in nature. The 

 strange, half-human, domestic life of a bird 

 in its severe struggle for existence amid the 

 play of endless forces, phj'sical and spiritual, 

 upon such a delicately organized being', sug- 

 gests inexhaustible possibilities. For either 

 poet or scientist, the southward rush of the 

 great bird arniies and their persistent return 

 movement north again, is a natural phenome- 

 non on the grandest scale. When, in the mid- 

 dle of September, the calls of passing birds 

 sound on, night after night, from twilight to 

 dawn, one gets a faint impression of the num- 

 bers of the moving flocks. And a more care- 

 ful observation will soon reveal a marvelously 

 complicated series of calls of every pitch and 

 quality, that tell of more than mere numbers. 

 But though the ordinary nocturnal flght of 



birds is rather quiet, disturbing causes often 

 reverse this rule. The writer recalls vividly 

 an experience one Jlay evening in the height 

 of the spring migration. A heavy rain had 

 come on about 9 o'clock, and the bewildered 

 birds overhead, losing their bearings com- 

 pletely, floated helplessly about over the city, 

 confused by tlie glare of the electric lights, 

 uttering cries that were all but human in the 

 emotions they apparently expressed. The soft, 

 clear note of the Eose-breasted Grosbeak, 

 heard best during the fall migration, is some- 

 thing well worth listening half a night to 

 hear in its perfection. It seems to express 

 the essence of a young bird's first bewildering 

 surprise at the strange and thrilling experi- 

 ences of a southward flight in darkness, and to 

 contain, besides, the cheery, stouthearted op- 

 timism which sustains it through all the 

 perils of the trying ordeal. 



The bird-calls to be heard during the mi- 

 grating season, are, after all, but a crude 

 means of gauging the magnitude of their 

 movement, or of ascertaining its more essen- 

 tial characteristics. If a small telescope be 

 turned upon the moon during the nights of 

 middle Seiitember, the passage of birds across 

 its face will furnish a more accurate measure 

 of what actually takes place. A series of such 

 observations for both spring and fall enables 

 the writer to speak with some certainty about 

 this interesting subject. The general state- 

 ment that the migration is more compact and 

 unified in the fall than in the s[)rlug is eon- 

 firmed by the results obtained from these ob- 

 servations. No birds were observed in March, 

 many were seen in April, and about the same 

 number for Jlay. The migration in the fall 

 appeared to reach its climax about the 15th 

 of September, when twice as many birds were 

 counted as for periods two weeks before 

 and after this date. This method can, of 

 course, be used only on clear nights, but the 

 counting of bird-calls on cloudy nights will 

 furnish some measure of the migration, even 

 under such unfavorable conditions. On nights 

 when most birds can be seen through the tel- 

 escope, the fewest calls appear to be heard. 

 These calls, however, seem to increase in num- 

 ber toward morning, and as the direction of 

 flight seems also to change at that time, the 

 two phenomena may mutually explain each 

 other It is obvious that there is here an op- 

 portunity of recording what has up to this 

 time almost defied record — the number of 

 birds moving for a given time, and the nature 

 of their flight. The identification of species, 

 while not impossible, is exceedingly ditficult, 

 owing to the rapidity with which the birds 

 pass across the field of vision. But enthusias- 

 tic amateurs have accomplished much in the 

 past and they will accomplish much more in 

 the future. Their aid is invalualile in arriving 

 at accurate and complete inforniation of this 

 wonderful and almost unknown movement of 

 our birds. 



