AVJAIN MlSl AKES. 



By J. McG. Baxter. M. D. 



little is knowD in reference to the causes that lead up to 

 and direct the gigantic migratory army of birds moving 

 North and South in spring and fall that every incident 

 that in anyway tends to explain or even to illustrate it, should 

 be seized upon, noted down, and given to the world by every 

 lover of the feathered tribe. Is it some venerable Canis sparsus 

 that, Moses-like, proclaims the hejira? Is it a sehnsucht for 

 sunshine or cool breezes that Nature has implanted in the heart 

 that lies in each feathered little yja/iscWa that simultaneously on 

 a given day "^e /eve" and compels its host to seek for "fields new 

 and pastures green?" Or is it merely a case of "supply and de- 

 mancV' of food and surroundings? Qaien sabe. Put goose in the 

 place of stork and we may ask with Pope, 



"Who bids the stork, Columbus-like, explore 

 Heavens not his own and worlds unknown before ? 

 Who calls the council, states the certain day. 

 Who forms the phalanx and who points the way ?" 



But whether it is a God-given instinct or a case of avian 

 judgment arising from long experience, we may see that it is not 

 inerrant from the following circumstance observed during the 

 meridional demigration of our wild geese as they passed here in 

 the autumn of 1903. As ornithologists well know, the wild 

 goose seldom or never breeds here but much further north. The 

 flocks, however, always stop here to feed on the way south, 

 to fatten up and lay in a supply of energy in the way of stored-up 

 fat, and probably also for a period of rest before taking their 

 lung flight south. I had not noted whether in this season (1903) 

 the general bird migration wave was later than usual, but the 

 season was rather later and the river remained open late, and 

 consequently the wild geese stayed late, the last flocks to leave 

 apparently having been overtaken by a northwest snowstorm 

 that we had. The snow must have drifted under their feathers 

 from behind (at least that is what Ave suppose); they turned 



