WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



been frequently done) over three hundred miles 

 from any point they know, rise nearly out of sight 

 in an effort to get their bearings. 



I must confess, however, that this goes only 

 part way towards solving the mystery of how birds 

 find their way over vast spaces of shoreless ocean, 

 as they habitually do in various parts of the world. 

 A large number of our land as well as water birds 

 have been recorded in western Europe, and a sea- 

 son rarely passes when some American songster 

 is not heard of in Great Britain. These wanderers 

 are evidently unfortunates that have been blown 

 far off shore and then drifted before the wind until 

 they struck the European coast; but the fact sheds 

 light upon our problems by exhibiting the speed 

 at which they must travel, since a bird's endurance 

 of famine is very limited. That European birds 

 almost never come to our shores is due to the fact 

 that the prevailing summer winds blow towards 

 the east. 



Many regular migration routes, however, lead 

 birds that follow them right across spaces of ocean 

 nearly or quite as wide as the Atlantic. Shore- 

 birds, such as plovers, sand-pipers, and curlews, 

 fly straight from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland 

 to the West Indies and South America; some will 

 s 113 



