July 13, 1895.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



25 



A REJOINDER ABOUT CRACKERS. 



Editor Forest and Stream : 



While I do not wish nor intend to enter into contro* 

 verey with "A Georgia Cracker" over the manner in 

 which I described my first meeting with a "Florida 

 Cracker," still if you will kindly allow me a little of your 

 valuable space in which to defend myself, I promise not to 

 transgress again. 



Now, in the first place, if "A Georgia Cracker" will 

 kindly look on page 507 of Forest and Stream, in the 

 first column near tbe top, he will find these words: "There 

 may be a better class of this part of the human race than 

 we met. I hope there is." I did not say that there was 

 not a better class of these people. That I hoped there 

 was. My assertion that we did not meet this better class, 

 however, I still stand by. While I do not in the slightest 

 doubt the word of your Atlanta correspondent when he 

 says he has met this better class, still what he has rntt 

 and what I have seen are "horses of different colors." 



Secondly — 1 do not wish "A Georgia Cracker'' nor any 

 one else, from anything I may have written, to infer that 

 I include all persons born in the State of Florida categori- 

 cally as "Crackers." Far from anything of the kind. I 

 always supposed that they were to be found exclusively in 

 the lower class of Southern whites. And from all accounts 

 of camping, hunting and fishing in that State that I have 

 read (for I, too, have read Forest and Stream very closely ; 

 in fact, as I write my eyes rest on more numbers of that 

 valued journal than an able-bodied man could very well 

 lift, as they date as far back as 1879), I do not remember 

 having read anything that would lead me to infer to the 

 contrary. I would not for one minute class the consider- 

 ate Fernandina storekeeper with the concave-chested 

 exister. 



Thirdly— It puzzles my mind considerably, in fact, it 

 is utterly impossible for me to get it through my head — 

 how under the sun friend "Georgia Cracker" could in- 

 vestigate such cases so thoroughly as in one place to say 

 that if I "had taken the trouble to inquire of them their 

 birthplace," as he had done in Georgia and Florida, "I 

 am sure their answer would have been Philadelphia or 

 other refined centers of the North;" when in another 

 place he distinctly says he never has run afoul of a case 

 of the kind while hunting, fishing and traveling in every 

 State east of the Mississippi. 



Fourthly— Of the hospitality of the people of the South 

 as a whole there is no question. But as to his inferring 

 in one place that my article was written to suit the taste 

 of Northern readers of Forest and Stream; then again, 

 in another place, of his distastefulness of my use of 

 Forest And Stream's columns in which to vent spleen 

 and prejudice against the South he simply is 'way off the 

 track, as I have no feeling of prejudice whatever to vent 

 against the South— for, list you, Sir Georgia Cracker, 

 while I gently whisper in your ear the fact that every 

 drop of blood that flows through my veins is Southern. 

 My parents and grandparents, uncles, aunts and each and 

 every one of their preceding ancestors, extending far 

 back into the past, years before the signing of the Declara- 

 tion of Independence, all first beheld the light of day in 

 that sunny land to the south of Mason and Dixon's line. 



With good feelings for all — even concave-chested 

 "Crackers"— and animosity to none, I close. 



Wm. H. Avis. 



New Haven, Conn., July 4. 



noon thousands and tens of thousands of these birds 

 break their journey; some, too, at suuset, in order to make 

 a few hours' stay on our island. It is, however, absolutely 

 impossible to ascertain the manner and method of 

 arrival of most of these visitors even by the most careful 

 observation. This is especially the case with the small 

 song bird and similar species, whose number increases 

 with each minute, without one being able to see a single 



GATKE'S BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND. 



A year and a half ago in Forest and Stream atten- 

 tion was called to Mr. Gatke's important work, entitled 

 "Heligoland, an Ornithological Observatory." This was 

 the German edition, which had made its appearance 

 nearly a year before. An English translation of this very 

 interesting work has just been issued from the press of 

 Mr. David Douglas, of Edinburgh, Scotland. It is intro- 

 duced by a preface by Mr. John A. Harvie-Brown, which 

 bears date May 8, 1895. 



As is well known, Heligoland is a tiny island in the 

 German Ocean, about forty miles north of the mouth of 

 the river Elbe. It consists of a rock rising 200ft. above 

 the sea, a waste of sand hills and rugged stone, which 

 offers little attraction or hospitality to the migrating 

 hordes which pass it. Only the auks and the guillemots 

 find a congenial home among its desolate storm-swept 

 crags, yet this tiny island is a stopping place for millions 

 of birds on their passage to and from their summer breed- 

 ing grounds. In early February the first of the advanc- 

 ing hosts make their appearance from the South. In 

 March their numbers increase, and by the end of the 

 month many summer birds, like the song thrush, two 

 species of doves, the snipe and the water rail, are abun- 

 dant. In April and May the migration is at its height, and 

 it is then that the collector reaps a rich harvest of facts 



HELIGOLAND. 



for his note book and secures his rarest specimens. Mr, 

 Gatke says, "If * * * the weather be especially 

 favorable the species pour in in incalculable numbers; 

 during the hours of night this great host of wanderers 

 weeps across and passes the island without taking rest 

 hereon — some of the birds traveling singly, others in 

 mailer or larger groups, according to the nature of the 

 pecies — all striving to gain their far-off homes. About 

 unrise, however, and during the early hours of the fore- 



THK AUTHOR IN SHOOTING DRESS. 



bird descending from on high or shaping its course in 

 any one particular direction. Many alight on the fields 

 while it is still dark, and are present in their thousands 

 by the time it has become daylight; some on the other 

 hand arrive shortly before sunrise, others arrive only 

 after the day has fully begun. From this time onward 

 their number increases steadily," 



Toward the end of June the returning migratory wave 

 sets in, and this increases through the following month. 

 With August the southward migration is in full force, and 

 continues through September and October, while in No- 

 vember the northern species, sea birds and birds of prey, 

 are abundant, and the migration cannot be called at an 

 end until well into December, when the winter residents, 

 such as tbe wildfowl, take up their home about the island. 

 Thus briefly, but most practically, does Mr. Gatke, in his 

 opening chapter, entitled "The Course of Migration in 

 Heligoland," set forth the seasonal progress of bird life 

 there. S 



Mr. Gatke's observations, which have continued over 

 fifty years in this island, have established two main facts 

 in regard to the direction of the migration flight: that in 

 autumn the migration proceeds from east to west, and in 

 the spring in the opposite direction ; that in the cases of 

 all the species and individuals noted on the island these 

 courses are rigidly maintained during the passage, or if 

 any deviations occur they do not extend beyond one or 

 two points of the compass. Similar observations con- 

 ducted since 1879 at the lighthouses and lightships on the 

 English and Scottish coasts have yielded results like those 

 of Mr. Gatke, and the conclusion seems inevitable that the 

 vast numbers of birds which breed in northern Europe 

 take, on their fall migration, a westward course until 

 they reach the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, 

 when they turn sharply to the south, and cross- 

 ing the English Channel distribute themselves 

 over southern Europe or pass on to Africa. In ' 

 spring, however, the line of flight is for many 

 species a different one. The birds no longer have 

 time to pass along in a leisurely manner at their 

 ease; it is essential that they should be at their 

 breeding quarters, perhaps in northern Asia, at 

 a fixed time, and instead of returning northward 

 by the route followed during their autumnal 

 journey, they make a direct northeasterly flight, 

 which carries them to their summer home in the 

 shortest possible time. Thus it is that many 

 species which are most abundant in Heligoland 

 in autumn are extremely rare there during the 

 spring. 



Mr. Gatke's chapters on the altitude of the 

 migration flight, its velocity, and the meteorological 

 conditions which affect it, are full of interest. They 

 could hardly be otherwise, since they contain the results 

 of observations carried on for so long a time over bo 

 limited an area. 



The altitude at which birds fly during their migration 

 is one of the subjects to which Mr. Gatke has devoted 

 much attention, and to this he has devoted a chapter con- 

 taining a great number of interesting facts and general- 

 izations, He concludes among other things that the 



common buzzard (Buteo) can soar upward without wing 

 movements and yet steadily and rapidly in unbroken 

 lines to heights where the human eye can no longer 

 reach the birds — in the present case at least 12,000ft. 

 Allied to this same question of rising through the air is 

 the habit common to many, if not all, the diving birds of 

 immersing a part or the whole of their bodies under the 

 water. This, of course, is wholly different from the act 

 of diving either in search of food or to escape active pur- 

 suit. He says: "All these birds when alive and undis- 

 turbed float so lightly on the water that they scarcely 

 make any noticeable depression in it. Nor is this surpris- 

 ing, for all of them have their under sides clothed with a 

 covering of down and feathers. It is perfectly easy to 

 understand how birds can without difficulty float on the 

 water on an almost weightless support of this nature, 

 which is moreover filled with warm air; but it is difficult 

 to explain how, in spite of such a float, they are able to 

 immerse themselves under the water and to remain for 

 any desirable length of time beneath the surface. Thus 

 a little grebe managed to escape observation on a piece 

 of water about sixty paces in diameter and from two to 

 three feet in depth by immersing itself up to its beak 

 and eyes in the middle of the pond and remaining quietly 

 beneath the surface. What is still more surprising, the 

 bird selected for its hiding place a part of the pond where 

 some dried gi'ass blades and wood shavings about an inch 

 long were floating about, which entirely diverted one's 

 attention from the insignificant portion of its head and 

 which were still visible above the water. On another oc- 

 casion a bird of the same species remained quietly im- 

 mersed at the margin of the same pool, where the water 

 was only about six inches deep, so that only its beak and 

 eyes remained above the surface. It should moreover be 

 noted that in the first instance the depth of the water as 

 well as the presence of any kind of vegetable growth com- 

 pletely precludes the supposition that the bird might have 

 obtained some kind of hold or attachment under the 

 water, while in the last case the bottom was so hard and 

 level that it is quite out of the question that the bird could 

 have held on to it with its feet. In both cases the birds 

 remained perfectly motionless, since the least motion 

 would, at so short a distance— at most some thirty paces 

 — have at once betrayed their hiding places. Naumann, 

 in Vol. IX. of his great work, relates similar experiences 

 in regard to this small diver. 



"Another extremely valuable opportunity of observing 

 this quiet immersion of the body was presented to me 

 many years ago in the case of a cormorant in a pond in 

 the Zoological Garden at Hamburg. For the purpose of 

 catching some of the swallows which were roving in 

 fairly large numbers over the surface of the water, the 

 bird had immersed itself to such a depth that only its 

 head remained visible above the surface. In this position 

 it remained perfectly motionless, for the least movement 

 of its feet would have been at once betrayed on the 

 perfectly smooth surface of the water. The swallows, 

 foreboding no ill, frequently came up very close to it, and 

 when the bird thought it could reach one of them it 

 would quick as lightning protrude its neck and make a 

 snap at it. After four of five unsuccessful attempts it 

 actually did manage to catch one of them, which it 

 swallowed after giving it a few shakes in the water. It 

 then quickly immersed its body as before, and with neck 

 drawn in continued to lie in ambush for further 

 prey." 



While, of course, it is difficult to determine the limits of 

 elevation for small birds, which disappear from view be- 

 fore they have attained any very great height, the case is 

 otherwise with large birds, such as the stork or the dark 

 plumaged crane.which may be supposed to disappear from 

 view at a height hardly less than 15,000 to 20,000ft. 

 Humboldt is quoted to show that the condor soars and 

 maintains itself for a long time at a height of not less 

 than 30,000ft. and which may be very much more. Ob- 

 servations made in the open air in Heligoland have 

 yielded similar results, and at a measured distance of 

 22,000ft. a flag of the same breadth of the expanse of 

 wings of the condor would not only be at once seen from 

 the island, but its color might be recognized. From these 

 and like observations, Mr. Gatke concludes that 40,000ft. 

 above the sea level is only a low estimate for the height 

 of the condor's flight. Birds such as rooks and curlews 

 are thought to pass across Heligoland at heights as con- 

 siderable as 10,000 and 15,000ft. ; sparrow hawks at not 

 less than 10,000ft. Attention too is called to the 

 enormous velocity with which some of these birds descend 

 from the great heights at which they traverse the upper 

 air and the abruptness with which they check themselves 

 on approaching the surface of the ground. All duck 

 shooters have observed this feature in the flight of wild- 

 fowl. It is believed, and with apparent reason, that the 

 number of birds whose migration flight is commonly 

 carried on within a few hundred feet of the surface of 

 the sea is extremely small. On the other hand, in dull or 

 foggy weather the flight is much lower than when the 

 weather is fine. Examples of the capture of great num- 

 bers of migrants which have flown against lighthouses or 



DIAGRAM OF LINES OF MIGRATION. 



lightedfsteamboats will occur to every student of bird 

 life. Mr. Gatke instances the night of November 6, 

 1868, when no less than 15,000 larks were captured on the 

 plain of the Highland in the space of about three hours. 

 No less than 3,400 of these were caught against the panes 

 of the lighthouse lantern alone. 



Mr. Gatke is disposed to assign to birds during their 

 migration flight a velocity much greater than has been 

 commonly acknowledged. Among the birds of swiftest 

 flight be instances that t of the Virginian plover^C/iaf^ 



