WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



course between Spain or Africa and England, 

 which is still farther. Our little bluebird pays an 

 annual visit to the Bermudas, six hundred miles 

 from the continent, and Wilson estimated its ap- 

 parently very moderate flight at much more than 

 a mile a minute. Remarkable stories are told 

 of the long flights tame falcons have been known 

 to take one going a thousand three hundred 

 miles in a day. Yarrell mentions carrier-pigeons 

 that flew from Rouen to Ghent, one hundred and 

 fifty miles, in an hour and a half ; and it is believed 

 that a certain warbler must wing its way from 

 Egypt to the Baltic, one thousand two hundred 

 miles, in one night, and it is probable that martins 

 endure equal exertion every long summer's day, 

 in their ceaseless pursuit of insects. Taking, then, 

 one hundred miles per hour as the rate of flight dur- 

 ing migrations, we need not be surprised that repre- 

 sentatives of more than thirty species of our wood- 

 birds have been shot in the British Isles, since 

 they could well sustain the sixteen hundred miles 

 between Newfoundland and Ireland. Many species 

 habitually cross much broader spaces of ocean. 



"A good ornithologist," says White, of Selborne, 

 " should be able to distinguish birds by their air, 

 as well as their colors and shape, on the ground 



35 



