28 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
while other millions diverge into the larger tributary valleys, such as the 
Arkansas, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin. Shorter but equally popular 
valleys are those of the Connecticut, the Hudson, the Potomac, the Susque- 
hanna and the Genessee, every one of which is noted for its throngs of mi- 
grants both spring and fall. 
The larger Michigan rivers all trend rather east and west than north and 
south and perhaps for that reason no one of them seems to have acquired 
fame as a migration route. True the Detroit and St. Clair rivers form a 
famous route for waterfowl, and it is no uncommon thing for ducks, geese, 
swans and gulls to pass Detroit in large numbers, flock often following flock 
in seemingly endless procession. Yet apparently Detroit is avoided by the 
greater throngs of land birds, the main stream of migrants passing some 
twenty miles east of the city, and one branch of this stream entering the 
state at Port Huron and flowing northward along the Huron shore, across 
the mouth of Saginaw Bay and eventually across the head of Lake Huron 
and the eastern end of the Upper Peninsula, into the relatively unknown 
regions of northern Ontario. 
Doubtless most Michigan migrants arriving from the south enter the state 
directly from Ohio or Indiana, and according to the generally accepted theories 
many of them, if from the far south, have come up the Mississippi valley 
to the mouth of the Ohio River, followed this valley to the northeast and as- 
cended some one of the tributary valleys from the north,—the Wabash, Miami, 
Scioto, etc., to the sources of these streams, and then by the Maumee, San- 
dusky and Huron rivers to Lake Erie or to the Ohio-Michigan line. Birds 
arriving on the Lake Erie shore at or east of Sandusky are known to cross 
the western end of Lake Erie by a route which takes them over Kelly and 
Pelee islands, as stepping stones, to Point Pelee in Ontario, a long, sandy, 
partly wooded point which stretches out nearly ten miles into Lake Erie. 
Continuing this journey northward from the point part of the migrants pass 
up the eastern shore of Lake Huron (Georgian Bay), while the remainder, 
as already noted, proceed directly north to the southern end of Lake Huron, 
crossing then into Michigan territory and proceeding northward along the 
western shore of Lake Huron. 
Possibly the Wabash Valley column may supply most of the migrants 
which enter southwestern Michigan, while those which use the Miami and 
Scioto valleys reach southeastern Michigan, or cross Lake Erie by the Pelee 
route, but it must be remembered that by no means all migrants follow river 
valleys, and especially in regions like the Indiana-Ohio-Michigan area, where 
the country is comparatively flat and everywhere well watered, there is every 
reason to believe that little use is made of the streams in directing the birds 
northward. 
It should also be clearly understood that there is certainly a well marked 
migration, both northward and southward, through Ohio and Indiana which 
is entirely independent of the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, the birds coming 
directly over the mountains from the South Atlantic and Gulf states to the 
Ohio valley, and very possibly completing their northward movement without 
any reference to the direction of water courses. 
It has been commonly assumed that land birds would prefer not to cross 
large bodies of water if they can be conveniently avoided, but while this may 
be true of birds migrating by day, it is certainly not true of all nocturnal 
migrants, and the records of birds killed at lighthouses, both along the sea- 
coast and on the Great Lakes, makes it pretty clear that very many species 
are quite indifferent as to whether their course lies over land or water. We 
