DIRECTION OF THE MIGRATION FLIGHT 45 



begin to start on their journey towards evening, others soon after 

 sunset, we can only explain the at first numerous, and afterwards 

 gradually diminishing, arrivals during autumn nights, by assuming 

 that these birds must have originated from near, or at least not 

 very far off, homes ; while, on the other hand, the spring wanderers, 

 arriving at one or two in the morning and increasing in numbers 

 from that time onward, must have started from regions very far 

 distant the first arrivals, perhaps, from the south of Europe, the 

 later ones from the northern or central regions of Africa. Among 

 the latter, our old friend the Northern Bluethroat may be again 

 cited as an instance ; the fact that this bird is never seen during 

 the night by the lantern of the lighthouse, but invariably makes 

 its appearance here in Heligoland only towards sunrise, is a further 

 proof of its long journey from northern Africa a journey, per- 

 formed in one uninterrupted flight, which may well excite our 

 astonishment and admiration. 



As we have shown in this chapter, the routes by which birds 

 travel twice during the year in order to accomplish their special 

 purposes, are as different from each other as those purposes are 

 themselves. The autumn migration conducts the travellers in 

 various directions to their winter quarters. These extend from 

 west Africa through India to the Philippine Islands, some species 

 from eastern Asia even advancing as far south as Australia and 

 New Zealand. From this enormous migration-front, embracing 

 half the circumference of the globe, flocks in their thousands pour 

 forth in spring, in incessant haste and by a direct road, to their far- 

 off homes at a greater or less distance from the Pole. At this time, 

 the numbers migrating between west and east are considerably 

 diminished. It makes, however, but little difference whether in 

 autumn the number of those migrating from east to west exceeds 

 that of the travellers from north to south, or whether in the spring 

 those journeying from the Equator to the Pole form the pre- 

 dominant majority. Both phases of the great movement unfold a 

 picture of bird-life of incomprehensible grandeur, presenting to our 

 wondering sight myriads of these restless wanderers hastening 

 during the long dark nights of autumn or the starlit midnight 

 hours of spring, by many intersecting paths, to their far-off winter 

 quarters or nesting homes ; each species following, at higher or 

 lower regions in the sky, a sure and definite road, not marked out 

 for them along river courses or mountain chains, but one that leads 

 them, independent of every physical configuration of the earth's 

 surface, and at heights many thousands of feet above it, surely and 

 safely to the distant goal. 



