INTRODUCTION. 29 
know that hawks, swallows, and some other day-migrants seem reluctant 
to venture out onto sea or lake, and prefer to “coast alongshore” in the direc- 
tion which takes them most nearly where they wish to go; but this may very 
likely result from the fact that these birds must feed more or less as they 
travel, andit demands no extraordinary intelligence to foresee the scarcity 
of food if they pass out over the sea or any large body of water. Just how 
far birds follow “blind instinct” (whatever that may be) in these trips and 
how far they act as intelligent beings is a moot question at present. One 
might suppose, after studying the map of the Great Lake region, that birds 
passing northward from the Lower Peninsula of Michigan would endeavor 
to cross into the Upper Peninsula at or near the Straits of Mackinac, but so 
far as we can learn birds are no more numerous during migration at that point 
than any other, and the fact that thousands of birds are killed annually at 
Spectacle Reef Light at the head of Lake Huron, quite a distance east of the 
Straits, would seem to show that the migrants—at least at night—take a 
direct north and south course without regard to the amount of land or water 
to be crossed. 
SOME USEFUL BOOKS OF REFERENCE. 
(A) Large works to be found in most libraries. 
1. Baird, Brewer & Ridgway. History of North American Birds. 
Land Birds, Vols. 1, 2, 3. Water Birds, Vols. 1, 2. Little, 
Brown & Co. 
2. Robert Ridgway. Birds of North and Middle America. Bull. 
50, U. S. National Museum, Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4 (5 in press). No 
life histories. 
3. Elliott Coues. Key to North American Birds, 2 vols. Dana 
Estes & Co., Boston, 1905, 5th ed. ($10.00). 
4. Capt. Chas. Bendire. Life Histories of North American Birds, 
2 vols.: Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Vol. 28, 
1892, and Vol. 32, 1895. Land Birds from Raptores to Icter- 
ide, with many fine colored plates of eggs. 
5. Henry Nehrling. Our Native Birds of Song and Beauty. 2 
large vols., 36 colored plates. Geo. Brumder, Milwaukee, 
1893. 
6. Howard Elon Eaton. Birds of New York. Memoir 12, N. Y. 
State Museum, Vol. 1, 1909 (Vol. 2 in press). About 50 
colored plates in Vol. 1. 
(B) Smaller works, some of which every bird student should own. 
7. Robert Ridgway. Key to North American Birds. J. B. Lippin- 
cott, 1 vol. 
8. Frank M. Chapman. Handbook of Birds of Eastern North 
America. Sixth (or later) edition, 1904. D. Appleton & 
Co., New York, $3.00. 
9. Frank M. Chapman. Warblers of North America. D. Appleton 
& Co., With 24 colored plates. $3.00 net. 
10. Frank M. Chapman. Bird Life. D. Appleton & Co., 1908, 
75 colored plates. (Popular edition $2.00.) 
11. Frank M. Chapman. Bird studies with a Camera. D. Apple- 
ton & Co., 1903. No colors. $1.75. 
12. Ralph Hoffman. Guide to the birds of New England and Eastern 
New York. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1904. $2.00. 
