178 Twelve Months With 



Most animals, especially those whose natural 

 instincts have not been dulled by domestication, 

 have this sense in more or less marked degree, but 

 in the exercise of this faculty the birds unquestion- 

 ably excel. While man cannot navigate the seas 

 without the aid of chart and compass, birds 

 released from a ship many miles at sea will invari- 

 ably and unhesitatingly head their flight directly 

 toward the nearest land. It is interesting, in this 

 connection to recall what an important part 

 migrating birds had in the discovery of this con- 

 tinent by Columbus. When the great navigator 

 and his men were almost upon the point of aban- 

 doning the attempt to reach land and about a week 

 before they landed at San Salvador, great encour- 

 agement came to them from observing large 

 numbers of birds migrating to the southwest, as 

 they do now, near the Atlantic coast. When after 

 a few days they became very abundant Columbus 

 changed his course and followed them, ultimately 

 reaching the Bahamas. It follows that migratory 

 birds were responsible for the fact that the great 

 navigator first landed in the Bahama Islands, 

 rather than on the mainland of North America. 



The homing instinct or sense of direction of 

 birds has been clearly demonstrated by some very 

 remarkable experiments conducted by Prof. Wat- 

 son, of Johns Hopkins University. Many thou- 

 sands of sooty and noddy terns nest on Bird Key, 

 a small island in the Dry Tortugas. Prof. Watson 

 took three or four of these birds first twenty, then 



