174 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



The Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea), is "the champion 

 long-distance migrant of the world. It breeds as far north as 

 it can find land on which to build its nest, and winters as far 

 south as there is open water to furnish it food. The extreme 

 summer and winter homes are ii,ooo miles apart, or a yearly 

 rotmd trip of 22,000 miles." (Cooke.) 



By what do migrating birds guide their courses high m air 

 on a pitch-dark night, — their busy time for flying? Do they, 

 too, know about the mariner's Southern Cross, and steer by 

 it on starlit nights? Equally strange things have happened. 



The regular semi-annual migrations of birds may fairly be 

 regarded as the high-water mark of instinct so profound and 

 far-reaching that it deserves to rank as high as reason. To me 

 it is one of the most marvelous things in Nature's Book of 

 Wonders. I never see a humming-bird poised over a floral tube 

 of a trumpet creeper without pausing, in wonder that is per- 

 petual, and asking the eternal question: "Frail and delicate 

 feathered sprite, that any storm-gust might dash to earth and 

 destroy, and that any enemy might crush, how do you make your 

 long and perilous journeys unstarved and unkilled? Is it- 

 because you bear a charmed life? What is the unsolved mys- 

 tery of your tiny existence in this rough and cruel world?" 



We understand well enough the foundation principles of 

 mammalian and avian life, and existence under adverse cir- 

 cumstances. The mammal is tied to his environment. He 

 cannot go far from the drcumpolar regions of his home. A bear 

 chained to a stake is emblematic of the universal handicap on 

 mammalian life. Survive or perish, the average land-going 

 quadruped must stay put, and make the best of the home in 

 which he is bom. If he attempts to migrate fast and far, he is 

 reasonably certain to get into grave danger, and lose his life. 



The bird, however, is a free moral agent. If the purple 

 grackle does not like the sunflower seeds in my garden, lo! he 

 is up and away across the Sound to Oyster Bay, Long Island, 

 where his luck may be better. Failing there, he gives himself 



