How to Understand the Birds 



[35 



at a rate somewhere between twenty and fifty miles an hour. The 

 great journeys made by some species are accomplished by the 

 birds moving for long hours at a steady rate rather than by great 

 bursts of speed over short distances. When we compare the speed 

 of an individual bird with the time it takes a flock of that same 

 species to complete its migratory journey, we realize that the 

 birds do not fly continuously night after night or day after day. 

 They may pause for extended rests or for favorable weather 

 conditions. 



WHERE BIRDS MIGRATE 



In the autumn several familiar species of smaller birds go 

 as far as Central and South America. Bobolinks, for instance, 

 leave the fields and meadows of northern states traveling south- 

 ward in leisurely fashion through the West Indies and along 



TWE BOBOLINK-MIGRATOR EXTRAORDINARY 



Every winter the bobolink journeys some five thousand miles from its United States 

 haunts to Brazil or Argentina, where it relishes their summer weather in the winter 

 months. The bobolink is welcomed where it devours weed seeds, detested where 

 it destroys rice crops. 



