74 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
higher and higher. It seemed to be very 
sweet music now in February before the 
bluebirds are in song. 
Later in our Red Cedar tree we saw 
eight Cedar Waxwings, very quiet, polite 
eating berries. The children reported a 
new bird January 8th. It was with a 
flock of six chickadees in an orchard. It 
had a tuft. Grayish brown above. Yel¬ 
lowish or reddish brown on flank or 
under the wing. We called it the tufted 
titmouse. We never saw it before. The 
children feed meat and bread every day. 
Four chickadees, three downy, one hairy, 
and the new woodpecker, two white¬ 
breasted nuthatches, and, since the snow, 
eight juncos come every day. The first 
five kinds will all be on the tree at once. 
It is like a show to the children. We 
are making a February bird calendar. 
Really, I did not intend to write so much. 
Yours truly, 
R. P. Crouch. 
Migration. 
Now that the northern birds are pass¬ 
ing on their way to their summer homes, 
and our own are returning, it may be in¬ 
teresting to stop to think where they 
have passed their winter and how do 
they travel? These questions have 
troubled many generations and it is only 
within the last hundred years that any 
great progress in knowledge has been 
made along this line. Many naturalists, 
White of Selborne being one, believed 
that many birds hibernated. For in¬ 
stance, swallows remained torpid in the 
mud of lakes like frogs. 
Some years ago about a hundred peo¬ 
ple pledged themselves to work together 
and learn more on the subject. They 
were scattered Irom the southern part oi 
Florida to Manitoba. The date when a 
species left the most southern point was 
compared with when it arrived at the 
most northern. For example, it was 
found that the Baltimore oriole left Rod¬ 
ney, Mississippi, April 7, and arrived at 
Oak Point, Manitoba, May 25, a distance 
of 1298 miles in forty-eight days; an av¬ 
erage speed of twenty-seven miles per 
day, but it is not a very complete test, 
for we all know that rain or cold often 
delays a flock for days so when they do 
travel they must fly much faster and 
farther than that. Frank Forrester 
claims ninety miles an hour for ducks. 
At anv rate thev can win in a race with 
a fast passenger train, and even a crow 
goes from twenty-five to thirty miles an 
hour. Of all birds the swift is the swift¬ 
est, as its name signifies. When they can 
travel at that speed it is no wonder that 
our birds winter in such far-off countries. 
There is the solitary sandpiper who 
breeds to the north of the United States, 
and winters in South Brazil and Peru. 
The bobolink comes to us in Mav, and in 
July, the young being raised, the male 
puts off his bright clothes and the flocks 
gather about the Chesapeak, where they 
are reed birds, and then they go on 
south where they are called rice birds, 
but they soon pass on, some by way of 
Cuba and some through Central America 
to Brazil. The catbirds go to Cuba and 
Panama; robins to our own southern 
states; chimney swifts also go to the 
southern states; cliff and barn swallows 
to Brazil, Paraguay, and West Indies; 
indigo birds go as far as Paraguay. The 
tree sparrow and snowflake of the north 
winter with us, while some species of 
sparrow, go to the West Indies, Mexico, 
Central America and the northern part 
of South America. There are ninety 
species of warblers who distribute them- 
