THE WINTER RHUBARB 101 



under consideration, let me recall the case of the 

 martins to which reference was made in an earlier 

 chapter — the case in which these hirds starved to 

 death because in a particular season di-ought pre- 

 vented the hatching out of their insect food. 



Everyone knows that the martin is a bird of 

 ven,' swift and powerful flight. Its estimated 

 speed is more than a mile a minute, and it habit- 

 ually remains hour after hour on the wing. It 

 was easily within the capacity of the martins that 

 stan-ed to death in Xew England to have shifted 

 their location at the rate of more than a thousand 

 miles a day. 



And assuredly within half that distance, prob- 

 ably within two or three hundred miles at the 

 most, they would have found an abimdant supply 

 of food. 



Xow the season at which the martins actually 

 stan^ed was August ; only a few weeks, therefore, 

 before the time of their regular autumnal migra- 

 tion. Had the birds lived another month they 

 would instinctively have begun a long journey 

 to the south, and a single night's flight would 

 have brought them to regions where no doubt 

 their food needs would have been abundantly 

 supplied. From a human standpoint, it would 

 seem only natural that the birds, deprived of 

 food, should have begun their seasonal migration 



