AVES 313 



a goodly share of pugnacity and resistance to hardship. Let the 

 modern birds consider the sparrow and his ways. He is plain and 

 homely, eats anything, lives anywhere, builds his nests in strange and 

 unfamiliar places, using new and untried materials. He can whip 

 anything his own size in feathers, but does not needlessly pick a 

 quarrel, and he can put up with either cold or heat, drought or flood; 

 they all look alike to him. Doubtless in the distant future he will 

 dispute for the supremacy of the earth with the mouse, the ant, and 

 super-man. 



Man owes much to the passerine birds. They give to him who 

 has a naturalistic bent a keener zest for woodland life. Vast numbers 

 of people find their lives enriched by the study of the haunts and 

 varied activities of the birds. As destroyers of harmful insects the 

 passerine birds are of inestimable value to mankind. It is therefore 

 of the utmost importance that all agencies organized for the preven- 

 tion of slaughter of the song-birds and other passerine birds, should 

 receive the united support of every zoologist and lover of nature. 

 Organizations such as Audubon Societies and the various Sportsman's 

 Clubs are doing much to spread propaganda favoring bird protection. 

 The writer of this volume would like to go on record as unreservedly 

 urging the support of all agencies designed for bringing about the 

 enforcement of laws forbidding the cruel and senseless slaughter of 

 migrant passerine birds. 



MIGRATION OF BIRDS 



"The desire to migrate," says Seebohm, "is a hereditary impulse, 

 to which the descendants of migratory birds are subject a force 

 almost, if not quite as irresistible as the hereditary impulse to breed 

 in the spring." Migrations follow more or less direct paths between 

 winter homes and breeding quarters. Most birds breed in the north 

 and winter in the south, Migration paths follow coast lines, as a 

 rule, and such locations as islands, capes, inlets and other good land- 

 marks are favorite stopping places. Frequently the same birds stop 

 at the same places several years in succession. 



Birds have keen powers of orientation, and a strong homing in- 

 stinct. This is not, as some appear to believe, due to a sixth sense, 

 but to a highly developed place memory, or ability to recognize 

 after a lapse of time elements in a landscape that have been observed 

 one or more times before. If a bird is taken to an entirely new region 



