The Birds and Poets 55 



continue their flight."* Beginning their flight, 

 birds have been observed flying upwards in an al- 

 most perpendicular direction, until they reached 

 heights beyond the range of the natural vision. 

 They usually rise to the greatest heights when start- 

 ing upon oversea journeys. 



Ducks and geese normally travel at about 40 

 to 50 miles per hour, but Prof. J. Stebbins and 

 Mr. E. A. Path made careful calculations from 

 observations with a telescope, and found that birds 

 passed at rates varying from 80 to 130 miles per 

 hour.t With favorable winds, even these rates of 

 speed are sometimes greatly increased. 



The distances traveled by the birds, some of 

 them so tiny that one would think they would be 

 wholly lost in the wide blue expanse of heaven, 

 are very remarkable. The palm warbler, which 

 is a common migrant with us in May, nests in 

 Canada, 3000 miles from Cuba, its winter home. 

 It is a tiny bird, about five inches long, less than 

 half the size of a robin. Similar long trips are 

 made by many of the other warblers that are so 

 small that the ordinary casual observer never sees 

 them at all as they flit about in our treetops in 

 May and September. 



The American golden plover nests along the 

 Arctic coast from Alaska to Hudson Bay, and 

 winters in Argentina, in southern South America, 

 8000 miles distant, and in the course of its migra- 



•Auk, 1888, p. 37. 



t Science [New York], xxiv., 1906, p. 49- 



