fields where the grass is scanty or closely 

 fed down by sheep or cattle. It is to 

 such places that they like to resort when 

 driven from their feeding grounds on the 

 sand flats by the incoming tide. They 

 also frequent, at such times, the crest 

 and dry sand of the beaches and shoals ; 



here they remain until the tide has suffi- 

 ciently ebbed to permit them again to re- 

 turn to feed." 



The Black-bellied Plover gives but 

 little attention to home building. Its 

 nest is a mere depression in the ground 

 lined with grass and leaves. 



SOME BIRD WONDERS. 



Geologically considered, the migration 

 of birds had its origin in the beginning of 

 the Post-Tertiary period of our globe's 

 history. Prior to the Glacial Epoch there 

 was no migratory instinct among the 

 feathered tribes of the earth's fauna for 

 the simple reason that there was no neces- 

 sity for such a change of habitat. 



Thus the annual recurrence of this 

 phenomenon has been going on not since 

 the creation, as many suppose, but for 

 units of ages whose lapse can be reck- 

 oned only by millenniums of calendar 

 years. It is not the time and place here 

 to discuss the means by which this length 

 of time can be even approximately deter- 

 mined, but there are certain inferences- 

 and conclusions which are well endorsed 

 by scientific research. 



For our present purpose it is quite suf- 

 ficient to say that the Glacial Epoch whol- 

 ly changed the climatic relations of the 

 polar and middle latitude regions of our 

 globe. From the semitropical conditions 

 which once perennially existed there, 

 these regions have since and for ages 

 been subject to the intense cold which 

 now periodically prevails within those 

 limits. 



There is a growing conviction among 

 geologists that the intense cold of the 

 Glacial Epoch was caused by a change in 

 the eccentricity of the earth's orbit. If 

 this be true, then the ''Great Winter" of 

 astronomers was reigning in all its se- 

 verity 210,000 years ago. 



.The wild goose, his near relatives, the 



brant and swan, and other aquatic feath- 

 ered races, made their appearance on the 

 fifth day of creation. "And God said. 

 Let the waters bring forth abundantly 

 the moving creature that hath life, and 

 fowl that may fly above the earth in the 

 open firmament of heaven." 



Now this fifth day of creation very 

 nearly corresponds to the Triassic and 

 Jurassic periods of Mesozoic Time in 

 Geology. 



Although ''every winged fowl after his 

 kind" is included in the bird category of 

 this creative act, it has been thought, and 

 for good reasons, that the more highly 

 organized birds other than the aquatic 

 tribes, did not make their appearance till 

 the sixth day of the Mosaic account, 

 which would be exactly represented by 

 the Tertiary Period of Cenozoic Time. 

 According to this view, then, the wild 

 goose is an older denizen of our world 

 than the smaller birds of passage which 

 make their home on the land only. 



But Geology fills up many niches and 

 supplies many details left blank in the 

 first chapter of Genesis. It is now one 

 of the firmly established tenets among 

 geologists that between the Mesozoic and 

 Cenozoic times there came a tremen- 

 dous disturbance in the earth's crust. 



In his "Story of the Earth," Dr. J. 

 Dorman Steele says, "The Mesozoic 

 time, like the Pulaeozoic, was closed by 

 mighty upheavals. The conditions of 

 life were changed. All the Mesozoic 

 types disappeared : hardlv any species 



