112 SOME SUGGESTIONS FOB BIRD STUDY. 



migrants. A comparison of dates in successive years will 

 throw light on the interesting question of their punctuality, 

 which is said in many cases to be marked irrespective of 

 unfavourable weather conditions. So also with regard to 

 place ; it is well established that, in spite of the very long 

 distances travelled, the same birds come back in successive 

 years to the same nesting place. 



(7) The distances travelled cannot of course be verified.* 

 But some well certified facts may be quoted, e.g. the 

 swallow may come to England from Natal in ten days, 

 the Sanderling migrates from Iceland to Cape Colony; 

 the Knot travels from the Arctic Circle to Australia ; the 

 Turnstone from Greenland to Australia, New Zealand, and 

 to South America ; the G-olden Plover is known to have 

 travelled 1,700 miles at a stretch. 



The order of travel is interesting. In spring, the adult 

 males arrive first, followed by the females, and last of all 

 the young. In autumn, the order of departure is reversed, 

 the young going first. An exception to this is the case of 

 the Cuckoos, whose young are left to follow alone. From 

 the fact that the young are able to do this, there seems 

 little doubt that migration is at bottom an instinct, an 

 inherited faculty. That this instinct may be aided l>y the 

 intelligence of the birds, or by their possessing an extra 

 sense, i.e. a " sense of direction," is, however, very probable. 

 It is also likely that the reasons for its performance are 

 bound up with the past history of birds themselves in 

 relation to climatic changes upon the earth. 



* In this connection, however, it might be suggested that those 

 who have opportunity might assist in a work designed to throw 

 light upon bird migration problems generally. Professor J. Arthur 

 Thomson of Aberdeen University is conducting an inquiry by means 

 of placing numbered rings upon the feet of birds captured and set 

 free again. The hope is that if large numbers are ringed, an appre- 

 ciable proportion will be heard of again from other parts of the 

 world. Any one willing to ring birds (e.g. nestlings) is invited to 

 apply to Professor Thomson, who will gladly supply rings for this 

 purpose. 



