SPEED OF BIRD FLIGHTS AND EXPRESS TRAINS. 299 



line, as a sort of advertisement for the railway 

 whereas the flight of birds is kept up hour after hour, 

 at infinitely higher rates of speed. 



We fear there are no means available for stating 

 authoritatively what these speeds are, with any degree 

 of accuracy; but it is generally considered that for 

 some of the stronger birds from 100 to 200 miles an 

 hour is by no means uncommon ; and that the highest 

 of these speeds is exceeded by some birds. 



Thus, Herr Gatke, whose splendid work on " The Birds 

 of Heligoland" ought to be in the library of every 

 lover of natural history, considers that a speed of up 

 to 216 miles per hour has been attained by the 

 Virginian Plover (Charadrius Virginicus), and a velocity 

 of 1 80 miles an hour by a small song-bird of un- 

 common beauty, and coming nearly up to the night- 

 ingale in the tunefulness of its song, the Northern 

 Bluethroat (Sylvia Suecica [Linn.])." * According to the 

 same authority, large flocks of the Virginian Plover 

 annually perform an unbroken flight of 3000 miles 

 and upwards, from Brazil to Labrador, across a con- 

 tinuous surface of ocean ; their migration columns 

 being constantly seen passing Bermuda, containing 

 countless thousands of birds, f 



There are however other authorities on ornithological 

 science who assert that these enormous flight-speeds 

 are much exaggerated and who regard the arguments 

 in their favour as based on fallacious data. All that 



* Heligoland as an Ornithological Observatory. The result of 50 

 years experience by Heinrich Gatke, translated from the German by 

 Rudolph Rosenstock, 1895, pp. 266 and 470, 471. 



N.B. Many valuable details upon the subject of Bird Migrations 

 occur in this work, well deserving of being richly studied. 



f The Naturalist in Bermuda, by J. M. Jones. 



