A BIRDLOVER'S YEAR 



Arctic blue-throat (a species of warbler) 

 left Africa at dusk and arrived in Heligoland 

 nine hours later, having travelled one 

 thousand six hundred miles on a stretch at 

 the miraculous velocity of one hundred and 

 eighty miles' per hour, and this little bird 

 is only about the size of our robin. The 

 flight of an eagle over a valley in the Pyrenees 

 was estimated at about one hundred and 

 forty miles per hour, that of the swallow at 

 ninety miles per hour, and the swift's rate 

 of travelling at double that speed, whilst 

 some carrier-pigeons are reckoned to travel 

 about fifty miles per hour. Pigeons have 

 been shot in America in whose crops were 

 found coffee-berries in such a fresh condition 

 that they could not have been swallowed more 

 than four or five hours before, yet the nearest 

 part of the country known to produce these 

 berries was some hundreds of miles distant. 



The structure of birds is especially adapted 

 for flight. Their bones are light, and in 

 many cases contain air in place of marrow, 

 whilst the whole build of the bird tends 

 towards an aerial existence. 



Many of the sea-birds pass all their life 

 on the open ocean, being found at a distance 



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