THE INSURGENCE OF LIFE 183 



Hawaiian Islands, which are about 2,000 miles away from 

 any continental area. Mr. H. W. Henshaw suggests that the 

 islands were accidentally discovered by storm-driven waifs 

 who were blown out to sea when following their usual 

 southward migration route along the Asiatic coast in 

 autumn. In any case the islands have become favourite 

 wintering grounds, and the migration to and fro has come to 

 be a regular recurrence. The birds leave the islands in spring 

 in very good condition and probably fly straight on across the 

 ocean, without feeding or resting, till they reach, it may be, 

 the Aleutians. There is good reason to beheve that many 

 of the Golden Plover breeding in Alaska are from Hawaii, 

 and that many of those that arrive in Hawaii in autumn 

 have been in Alaska. ' It thus appears ', Mr. Henshaw 

 says, ' that thousands of birds, large and small, make a 

 2,000-mile flight from Alaska to Hawaii in fall and return 

 in spring '. The flights are hazardous and many are lost, 

 but the marvel is that so many are successful. 



' What at first might appear a physical impossibility — 

 the 2,000-mile flight of small birds across an ocean highway 

 without a single landmark and with only the friendly winds 

 to guide them, if indeed they utiHze these as guides — ^is 

 not only possible, but the feat is accomplished annually 

 by many thousands of individuals, and apparently with no 

 stops for rest or food. The wonder of it is increased when 

 we reahze that these annual flights are undertaken solely 

 for the purpose of making a sojourn of a few brief weeks in 

 Alaska to nest and rear their young.' 



Mr. Henshaw falls back on the hypothesis of ' a sense of 

 direction tantamount to a sixth sense '. The confidence 

 with which the migrants launch out from Hawaii into the 

 trackless waste certainly gives us pause. 



