Speed of Birds. 119 



Hawk, the Wild Pigeon, (Columba migratoria,) and 

 several species of Wild Ducks, fly at the rate of a 

 mile in a minute and a half; this is at the rate of 

 forty miles an hour, nine hundred and sixty miles 

 in twenty-four hours. This would enable birds to 

 pass from Charleston to our distant northern settle- 

 ments in a single day ; and this easily accounts for 

 the circumstance, that geese, ducks, and pigeons 

 have been taken in the Northern and Eastern States, 

 with undigested rice in their crops, which must 

 have been picked up in the rice fields of Carolina or 

 Georgia, but the day before. 



The story of the falcon of Henry II, is wellknown; 

 which, while eagerly pursuing one of the small bus- 

 tards at Fontainebleau, was taken the following day, 

 at Malta, and recognized by the ring which she bore. 



Swallows fly at the rate of a mile a minute. That 

 many birds continue their migrations by night as 

 well as by day, may be easily ascertained from their 

 notes, wliich in autumn and spring, the seasons of 

 their migration, we often hear by night. The great 

 Whooping Crane scarcely ever pauses in his migra- 

 tions to rest in the Middle States. I have heard his 

 hoarse notes as ne was passing over the highest 

 mountains of the Alleghany ; but he was always too 

 high to be seen by the naked eye. This bird seems 

 to take wing from his usual winter retreats in the 

 South, ascends into the higher regions of air (where 

 less inconvenience is experienced from darkness,) 

 and scarcely halts until he arrives at his breeding 

 places, in or near the polar regions. 



Birds migrate, either to avoid the cold of winter, 

 or to find more abundant food. I am induced to 

 believe that the latter is a stronger principle than the 

 former. * * * Those immense numbers of birds 

 that feed on insects and worms, all migrate to those 

 countries where they are abundantly supplied with 



