OCTOBER, 1902. 
THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 
179 
their calendars according to the regular movements of the birds ; 
that North American Indians foretold an early spring or a cold 
winter by the appearance or disappearance of birds ; and that 
superstitious people of all times saw forebodings of good or ill in 
certain of the migratory movements. 
But it can be said that prior to the eighteenth century bird 
migration was scarcely looked upon as a biological phenomenon. 
Dixon says that Belon watched birds migrating three hundred 
years ago, that a century and a half ago Gilbert White (i), Den- 
nis Harrington and Thomas Pennant watched migratory move- 
ments in England, and on the continent contemporaries with 
Linnaeus studied these periodical flights (2). Palmen says: 
Linne admonished natural philosophers to observe the migra- 
tion of birds. Quetellet then in the year 1841 asked that changes 
in living nature also be noted in a regular and comprehensive 
manner, and his countryman de Selys Long-Champs proposed to 
collect data especially on the migration of birds" (3). 
But it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that 
this study began to assume a systematic form. The collection of 
data on migration, however^ was at first of secondary importance, 
the material being used for climatological purposes. Although a 
few individual observers were occupied in watching these move- 
ments for over two hundred years before this, nothing could come 
of such few and incomplete observations. Each observer formed 
his own conclusions, resulting in such absurd statements as that 
migratory birds went to the moon, that certain species were 
transformed into others, and some of the world's most eminent 
naturalists held the idea that birds became torpid and passed into 
a state of hibernation. This last theory held a prominent place 
for a long time, and relative to certain birds even to very recent 
times (4). 
From 1840 to 1876 much work was done on zoography, but 
much of the material collected was used by climatologists with 
a view to finding an expression of the corresponding regions. 
Although Dernham as early as the year 1708 published a work 
on the periodicity of migration and its relation to climate, similar 
work was not undertaken until in the time of Quetellet in 1841, 
and then for climatological purposes. While it cannot be said that 
1. Gilbert White, Natural History of Selbourne. 
2. Dixon, The Migration of Birds. London, 1892, p. 123. 
3. Palmen, Eeport on the Migration of Birds. Smithsonian Report. 
1892. P. 375. 
4. Cowes, Birds of Oolo. Valley, pp. 372 et seq. 
