234 
HARPER’S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
i i ( I 
immense. Some pass high over our heads, like 
the brant or common wild-goose, or even among 
the very clouds, like the loon and gull, alight¬ 
ing only in the great lakes ; others, as the duck, 
working more slowly up and down our rivers 
and water-courses; or, like the snipe family, 
along the sea-coast; all having their homes in 
higher latitudes. In books and cabinets they 
are frequently jumbled together with our resi¬ 
dent birds, as if belonging to the same region. 
Specimens, indeed, of almost every variety are 
seen and shot at, for they are all aquatic. But 
they are in no sense birds of our State or region 
any more than a Canadian is our fellow-citizen 
because, on his way to Newport, he may have 
been seen on our steamboats or killed on one of 
our railroads. 
Birds belong only where they breed; they have 
homes only where they rear their young; and 
the gulls, geese, ducks, eider-ducks, and birds of 
that class not only do not now nest, but never 
have nested, in the latitude of New York. The 
accounts of persons who have been carried away 
captive by Indians of our early history into un¬ 
broken forests, and the legends of the Indians 
themselves, show that the»habits of these birds 
were the same then as now. To reckon these 
transient visitors as summer birds is simply a 
contradiction of terms ; for all birds breed in the 
summer, and where they breed they are resi¬ 
dents, not visitors. 
At the most northern point reached by Kane, 
in latitude 82 ° N., the rocks were crowded with 
sea-swallows, ducks, gulls, and geese, breeding 
as early as the last of June. Only such condi¬ 
tions of climate as these regions afford can feed 
the myriads whose nests crowd whole islands. 
For three months of delightful summer the sun 
is almost constantly shining, and on the savage 
Labrador coast may be termed “intensely” hot. 
Vegetation, which never knows drought, has 
been preserved fresh and green just as the warm 
snows of August and September found it, and 
needs not to spring up, but only to grow, at the 
first call of the steady spring. Stimulated to 
an almost unnatural development, it sends forth 
succulent stems and roots which, with adhering 
molluscs, serve the Arctic birds with food. Dr. 
Kane has given us a picture of lively life. He says: 
“It was near the close of the breeding seateon. The 
nests were still occupied by the mother birds, but many 
of the young had burst the shell and were nestling under 
the wing, or taking their first lessons in the water-pools. 
Some, more advanced, were already in the ice-sheltered 
channels, greedily waiting for shSll-fish and sea-urchins 
which the old bird busied herself in preparing for them. 
Near by was a low island or rock-ledge. The glaucous 
gulls—those cormorants of the Arctic seas—had made it 
their peculiar homestead. Their progeny full-fledged and 
voracious crowded the guano-whitened rocks, and the mo¬ 
thers, with long necks and gaping yellow bills, swooped 
above the peaceful shallows of the eiders, carrying off the 
young birds seemingly just as their wants required. The 
gull would gobble and swallow a young eider in less time 
than it takes me to describe the act. For a moment you 
would see the paddling feet of the poor little wretch pro¬ 
truding from the mouth; then came a distension of neck 
as it descended into the stomach; a few moments more 
and the young gulls were feeding on the ejected morsels.” 
In these regions the birds remain at their 
breeding-places about three months. Those of 
our locality average about five. Thus the Arc¬ 
tic birds are one month in making the distance 
down to us, and the same in going back. They 
arrive in time to go southward with our latest 
summer birds. To both the remainder of the 
year is one grand excursion to the tropics and 
return thence. The biennial journeys of the 
wild-goose would encompass the globe, and others 
of the migratories are capable of long flights; 
but if they find suitable stopping-places they 
prefer to accomplish the way by easy stages, 
keeping near the thermal line, just out of the 
shadow of winter. 
When we see the triangles of wild-geese pass¬ 
ing to the north in the spring, or even hear them 
at midnight in the air, we are not to suppose 
that they are making the vast distance to their 
breeding-places in one flight, for their Arctic 
resorts are by no means ready for their recep¬ 
tion, being fast locked in ice for a month longer; 
and we have seen that they do in fact employ 
that time to make the journey. The flocks are 
passing at such times from Delaware or Chesa¬ 
peake bay, or from Long Island Sound over a 
thickly settled country to the lakes of Northern 
New York, which flight would require from dusk 
till dawn—for the velocity of birds’ flight is gen¬ 
erally overstated. When our swiftest water- 
fowl are started from our rivers, even before a 
steamboat, when they would fly their fastest, 
they do not keep up with the express trains 
along the bank. A flock of birds coming upon 
you suddenly will frequently dive in passing, 
and in that downward flight will move for a dis¬ 
tance very swiftly; but it may be asserted that 
no- animal, bird, beast, or fish can move fairly 
forward faster than one mile in a minute. The 
ordinary flight of the swiftest birds is much 
slower than this. 
The note of Arctic birds is usually accounted 
monotonous and harsh, but when on their long 
journeys it is heard from the upper air and thus 
mellowed by distance, it has a peculiar charm 
and interest. You hear the loon while he is 
out of sight, and the cry seems unearthly, lost, 
and painful; but witness how boldly and with 
what unvarying directness he strikes out his 
lofty sky-line, and it then sounds wild and ex¬ 
ultant. The call of the wild-goose, especially 
when heard in their night-journeys, has an inde¬ 
scribable melody. I once knew an old hunter, 
whose ducking-gun had raked many a cove of 
the Hudson, who asked to be buried with his 
head to the river that he might “hear theAvild- 
geese go up in the spring.” 
If we ask the causes for the coming and de¬ 
parture of our own summer birds, we are com¬ 
monly referred to the seasons as a sufficient 
explanation. We are told that they will come 
with the warm weather and leave at the approach 
of winter, and yet if we note their appearance, 
the same species or even the same individuals 
for successive springs, we shall find that they 
are not so dependent upon the weather; and 
