36 BIRDS OF SOUTH DAKOTA 



We must be careful, however, not to make the food factor 

 or any other factor explain too much. Mr. Frank M. Chapman 

 is probably right in associating bird migration with the homing 

 instinct. It is simply natural for all animals at the mating sea- 

 son to want to get away and be alone. Birds can best do this 

 by distributing themselves over the entire country. Indeed 

 some of the birds remain in the north only long enough to nest 

 and rear their young to full strength. The familiar Yellow 

 Warbler, the common Orchard Oriole, and the less well known 

 Redstart, are all leading their broods on the return journey 

 southward before the middle of July. 



It is quite as natural that the mating instinct should be 

 associated with places as with time. And after all possible ex- 

 planations have been made the most fundamental fact is that 

 birds have been made so. This fact becomes increasingly signi- 

 ficant when we consider that birds not only scatter over the 

 entire country during our summer, but that every place in Nature 

 the pond, the shore, the grass that skirts it, the open fields, 

 the woods, the orchards, every place to our very doors has its 

 birds. Each bird has its special habitat for nesting and feeding, 

 and each is adapted to its place. They have been made so. 



Although, as indicated above, it is natural for birds to mi- 

 grate so as to gain as much seclusion as possible at nesting time, 

 birds love to migrate in company, the closeness of the compan- 

 ionship varying greatly with the species. Before migration in 

 the autumn one may see Meadowlarks and Robins gathering in 

 loose companies. In the same way several species of Blackbirds, 

 such as Red-wings, Yellow-heads, Cowbirds, Crackles and oth- 

 ers, gradually draw together before going south. 



While camped near the badlands in the eastern part of 

 Pennington County in late August, 1914, the writer saw Western 

 Lark Sparrows, Lark Buntings and Cowbirds flocking together, 

 resting together under shady creek banks, and feeding together. 

 Whether they were simply gathered about "water holes" in a 

 country where water was scarce or were beginning to associate 

 preparatory to migration, one may not say. The writer has seen 

 Western Yellow-throats and Lazula Buntings feeding together 

 in late July in weeds and thickets of the Missouri River bottom 



