THE WINTER RHUBARB 



Everyone knows that the martin is a bird of 

 very 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 

 starved to death in New England to have shifted 

 their location at the rate of something like two or 

 three 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 abundant supply 

 of food. 



Now the season at which the martins actually 

 starved 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 a few weeks 

 before the usual time; whereby their lives would 

 have been saved. 



Whoever understands the force of hereditary 

 instinct will realize that such a departure as this 

 was for the birds impossible. 



[187] 



