190 The Migration of Birds 
very much more readily than the actual speed on 
any particular day. For example, the barn swallow 
arrives at Greencove, Florida, March fifteenth, and 
forty days later arrives at New Betlin, N. Y., eight 
hundred and seventy miles north. This is an average 
flight of about twenty-one miles per day, but when 
we take into consideration time for rest, storms, and 
other hindrances, the actual distance covered on some 
days must have been considerably greater. This, 
however, does not test the flight of the swallow when 
considered for a short time. Experiments have been 
made in which swallows attained a speed of one hun- 
dred and six miles per hour. 
In our migrations the average speed of fifty or 
sixty species per day is a little less than twenty-five 
miles. The wild goose in migrating northward covers 
a distance of from three hundred to six hundred miles 
in a single flight, the American golden plover exceed- 
ing even this by a thousand miles. 
We have now considered the various phases of 
bird migration in spring and fall, and noted that the 
last to come were the first to go, and that the earlier 
birds remained the longer. Must we drop our de- 
lightful out-of-door bird study for the next three 
months—December, January, February? By no 
means. Of course for many of our lady bird-lovers 
