1908 ] Recent Literature. 333 



tor of the Department of Marine Biologj' of the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington, in his annual report for 1907, states, in reference to the work 

 of Prof. John B. Watson of Chicago University on the beha^'ior of Noddy 

 and Sooty Terns, that " Among other things, he demonstrated that if sooty 

 terns and noddies were taken to Cape Hatteras and there Hberated they 

 would return to their nests on Bird Key, Tortugas, a distance of 850 stat- 

 ute miles from their place of liberation." Prof. Watson's full report on 

 these experiments has not yet appeared, but Mr. Chapman gives some of 

 the details and comments on the matter in ' Bird-Lore ' for May-June, 

 1908 (p. 134) as follows: 



"We have before referred to the studies of Noddies and Sooty Terns 

 by Prof. John B. Watson on Bird Key, Tortugas, during the nesting season 

 of 1908, and in the annual report of Dr. Alfred G. Mayer, Director of the 

 Department of Marine Biology of the Carnegie Institution, under the 

 auspices of which Professor Watson's researches were made, there appears 

 a preliminary" report of this work. The final report will appear during the 

 year, and we will call attention here, therefore, only to Professor Watson's 

 supremely interesting tests of the homing instincts of Noddies and Sooty 

 Terns. Fifteen marked birds were taken from the Key and released at 

 distances varying from about 20 to 850 statute miles, thirteen of them 

 returning to the Key. Among these thirteen were several birds which 

 were taken by steamer as far north as Cape Hatteras before being freed. 



"This experiment is by far the mo.st important in its bearing on bird 

 migration of any with which we are familiar. It was made under ideal 

 conditions. Neither the Noddy nor Sooty Tern range, as a rule, north of 

 the Florida Keys. There is no probability, therefore, that the indi\'iduals * 

 released had ever been over the route before, and, for the same reason, 

 they could not have availed themselves of the experience or example of 

 migrating indi\aduals of their own species; nor, since the birds were doubt- 

 less released in June or July, was there any marked southward mo\-ement 

 in the line of which they might follow. Even had there been such a move- 

 ment, it is not probable that it would have taken the birds southwest to 

 the Florida Keys, and thence west to the Tortugas. This marked change 

 in direction, occasioned by the water course, which the birds' feeding 

 habits forced them to take, removes the direction of the wind as a gvdding 

 agency, while the absence of landmarks over the greater portion of the 

 journey, makes it improbable that sight was of ser\'ice in finding the way. 

 Professor Watson presents, as yet, no conclusions, but, while awaiting 

 with interest his final report, we cannot but feel that his experiments with 

 these birds constitute the strongest argument for the existence of a sense 

 of direction as yet derived from the study of birds. With this established, 

 the so-caUed mystery of migration becomes no more a mystery than any 

 other instinctive functional activity." — J. A. A. 



