2 WILD LIFE IN CHINA. 



But here difficulties arise. In many cases the young 

 migrate first whilst plenty of food remains. They travel, too, 

 by night and at immense heights. With nobody to lead, 

 nothing to direct, for even if they could see landmarks they 

 could not recognize what they have never seen before, how 

 do they find their way? Here we arrive at mystery almost 

 at the threshold of our science. We are equally at a loss 

 when asked to explain why the males of song birds precede 

 their mates, and we certainly cannot tell why the migratory 

 instinct should turn to nothingness so fundamental a passion 

 as love of offspring. Yet so it is. The migrant mother 

 caught by the autumn instinct whilst still her family cares 

 are incomplete, forgets everything but the call of the south. 

 Nest and nestlings go for naught, and the first care of her- 

 self and her spouse, on returning to their abandoned home 

 in spring, is to rid the nest of the corpses of her own starved 

 young! Mystery of mysteries, who shall unravel it? 



There are pseudo-scientific pronouncements at which 

 we can turn heavenwards a very dubious nose: such for ex- 

 ample as that "All the regular migratory birds are insect 

 eaters, or nearly so." Is the snipe such an one? or the goose? 

 or the predatory bird which follows north the other 

 migrants? Perhaps, also, we should count as questionable the 

 statement that birds always take the same lines in their 

 travels. For when we turn to consider our own case in 

 China, it would seem as if the word "line" would have to be 

 very elastic indeed to include the breadth here covered. 

 There is a well-known Heligoland line of migration in 

 Europe, which by and by we may be able fully to account 

 for. Its breadth is comparatively little. But what are we 

 to say of the line of spring migration in China which is pro- 

 bably a thousand miles across? Shall we not inevitably 

 come to the conclusion that much depends on the configura- 

 tion of the land? Were there a Himalayan range stretching 

 from Tibet to Soochow, let us say, then doubtless there 

 would be a line of migration passing over the coastline of 

 this neighbourhood. But China has no such range. High- 

 flying birds probably think nothing of ordinary mountain 

 obstacles, and even those which keep low find the Chinese 

 ranges conveniently running more or less in a northerly 

 direction so that they may be skirted, or else provided with 

 convenient gaps through which a passage may easily be 

 found. There are few or no traps in which as in some lands 

 birds are caught as in a cul de sac. 



It must be remembered that according to their nature 

 birds vary greatly in the manner of their migration. Usually 

 the autumn migration is taken more leisurely by all. But 

 even in the spring some kinds move along It after //, mile 



