THRILLING MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS. 225 



in a city lot more cheerful for me of a winter morning. I 

 was interested and somewhat surprised, however, to see, in 

 a recent number of Nature Notes, the excellent organ of 

 the vSelborne Society, that this aggressive bird is held in 

 the same detestation by many people in England as it is 

 almost universally regarded here. 



Thrilling Migrations of Birds. 



A shipwrecked man who is picked up at sea, after en- 

 during days of privation in an open boat, has generally an 

 exciting story to relate. If birds could talk, some of those 

 in the New York zoological park could tell of experiences 

 which would dwarf any tale a mariner could spin. 



When the birds migrate north in spring and toward the 

 tropics in the autumn, they sometimes pass over large 

 bodies of water, and a fav'orite route is along the seacoast 

 of the countries over which they fly. These routes are so 

 fixed by the law of precedence that even where islands 

 have disappeared in the process of geological changes, 

 birds will still concentrate their flocks and cross consider- 

 able bodies of water at the exact places where formerly the 

 passage was made less difficult and the way more clearly 

 marked by the long since submerged land. On these noc- 

 turnal journeys — for most birds fly at night, from fear of 

 hawks — storms at times come up suddenly from the land- 

 ward side and drive the birds helplessly out to sea. All 

 they can do is to keep their balance, which the very veloc- 

 ity makes an easy matter, and drift along, fortunate if they 

 can manage to avoid the black waves and the stinging 

 spray beneath them. 



A European heron recently flew on board the steamship 

 Glencartney when the vessel was about two hundred and 

 five miles southwest of Cape Cormorin, the southern ex- 

 tremity of India. The bird did not appear exhausted, al- 



