SOME FAMOUS BIRD TRAVELERS 



to reach the Bermudas deliberately set out like 

 explorers to discover new worlds. Perhaps, like 

 Columbus, they chanced to land upon the Ber- 

 mudas just as he did in the Bahamas. We may 

 also suppose that, finding plenty of fish to live on 

 and holes in the coral rock to nest in, they stayed, 

 laid their one egg, and raised their downy white 

 chick. When it could join them they returned 

 to the West Indies whence they had come. 



Possibly the parents never flew back to the 

 Bermudas but the chick, prompted by that love 

 of the land of his birth which plays so important 

 a part in bird migration and which we shall 

 speak of later as the "homing instinct," may 

 have flown back to the Bermudas the following 

 year. "How could he find the way?" is a ques- 

 tion which I will try to answer in a later chap- 

 ter. That his offspring do find the way, their 

 return in hundreds every February clearly 

 proves. 



The Tropic Bird is not the only migrant which 

 each year visits the Bermudas. Certain shore 

 birds frequently stop here and, among land birds, 

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