CHAPTER III 



ROUTES 



THE migrating bird, when passing between the 

 breeding home and the winter quarters, travels by 

 what is termed its Route. The definition of the 

 route has caused more controversy than perhaps 

 any other incident of migration ; the chief point 

 at issue is whether the bird uses a particular high 

 road, along which all its fellows from the same area 

 travel, or if all birds move in what has been called 

 a " Broad Front/' Ornithologists have been, and 

 to some extent still are, divided into two camps, 

 one upholding defined routes and the other the 

 extended or broad front movement. 



A^ter all the difference is merely one of degree. 

 Even the widest notion of the broad front, that 

 of Gatke, who insisted, as dogmatically as he did 

 on most points, that the width or breadth of the 

 migrating host corresponded with the extent of 

 the breeding range (29), is of a route, bounded on the 

 one hand by the northern or eastern and on the 

 other by the* southern or western lines of latitude 

 or longitude which marked the limits of the range. 

 The idea of a route may be narrowed down to the 

 c 33 



