this country's coasts, both east and west. This is due 

 to the increased width and vast extent of the continent 

 to the north of us and to the wonderful feeding ground 

 and natural line of travel offered by the shore to both 

 land and water birds upon their flight. 



From the Bay of Fundy southward along the Atlantic 

 Coast this effect of concentration during the migration 

 season is particularly great, and must have rendered 

 it in the early days, when birds were plentiful, a mar- 

 velous sight. 



Other great highways of migration lie along the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley and the Pacific Coast, and along all three 

 of these great natural routes it is essential that bird 

 reserves and sanctuaries be established. But extensive 

 tracts have been already set aside for this on the Pacific 

 coast, and reservations too, on a great scale, are now 

 in process of establishment in the Mississippi region. 



It remains for us in the East, where the bird life was 

 so abundant formerly and the need came earliest, to do 

 like work ; and nowhere is there work more urgent to be 

 done, nowhere is the present need so critical. 



The tendency of most migratory birds nesting on the 

 eastern third of the continent is to fly southeastward 

 from their nesting grounds until they reach the coast 

 and then to follow it on southward. 



Thus when the autumn frosts come, migratory birds 

 from Greenland, from all the shores of Baffins Bay, 

 from Labrador and Newfoundland and the wild interior 

 pour their diminished legions down toward the Maine 

 coast; in the springtime they return and spread out 

 northward from it. 



Mount Desert Island, accordingly, unique in being the 

 only mountainous tract thrust prominently out into the 

 sea and rich in meadow lands and valleys, offers an im- 

 portant landmark and admirable resting place for migra- 

 tory birds of every kind — birds of sea and shore, the 

 useful insect-eating birds of cultivated lands and gar- 



6 



