148 REV. W. SERLE ON 
and stars is always sufficient to guide them; and this is to 
be said in favour of that last statement, that as long as you 
see it clear above, there is no chance of birds coming down 
on the land during the night. It is only when the nights 
become cloudy or mists set in that birds seem to lose them- 
selves and descend on lighthouses, or hover in distracted 
bewilderment over the lights of our large cities. Of course 
these things when stated were not universally received: they 
seemed to make birds mueh wiser animals than they were 
conceived to be. Middendorff, for example, a distinguished 
Russian naturalist, who had studied bird phenomena 
amidst the desolate wilds of Siberia, and had also made 
himself an authority on the wandering tribes of these 
parts, observed, first of all, that these natives never lost 
their way in their perennial wanderings: civilised beings 
would be constantly lesing their way. Not so the Samoiedes ; 
they had inherited an animal faculty of direction. It was 
the same with birds in migration: whether they migrated 
by day or night they would not go wrong, for they possessed 
a mysterious faculty of direction. The same naturalist, 
whilst resident in the Taimyr Peninsula, which is south of 
the magnetic pole, was struck with the number of birds that 
flocked to that district. It was near to the magnetic pole. 
He chose seven well-known birds, and got their first appear- 
ance recorded at various points east and west in Russia 
and Siberia, and he arrived at the conclusion that all birds 
are attracted to the magnetic pole. It was an ingenious 
idea. Unfortunately it does not hold good for West Siberia 
or North America. How long the Theory of Tradition is 
to hold ground I should not like to say. Ido not say that 
most recent facts have destroyed it, for these facts are yet 
too few innumber; but certainly the latest facts have thrown 
doubts upon the theory. Observations on the Continent 
have been adduced to show that young birds alone, which 
know nothing about the way, are the first to migrate. 
These young birds set out on their long journeys from six 
to eight weeks after leaving the nest; the female parents 
follow later, and last of all the males. In the spring 
the order is reversed. Of course this may not be with all 
birds, for swallows, old and young, congregate promiscuously 
