eifce 
OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE WISCONSIN. ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN AUDUBON SOCIETIES 
One Year 25 Cents _ Single Copy S Cente 
Published by the Wisconsin Audubon Society at Madison, Wisconsin 
Entered as second class matter fluoust 23, 1909, at Madison, Wis., under the act of Conoress of March 3, 1879 
YOL. XIV 
MARCH, 1913 
NO. 
THE MIGRATION OF OUR BIRDS 
By F. H. King 
During the winter months, save the 
r 0 
partridge, prairie chicken, quail and a 
few other species, Wisconsin has no birds’. 
Our door-yards and gardens, our fields 
and orchards, our woodlands and mead¬ 
ows, our streams and lakes are silent and 
deserted. But as soon as the bare ground 
begins to appear and the warm rays of 
the sun to loosen the soil, setting free 
beetles and caterpillars, so soon there 
appear among us the robin, the blackbird 
and the gull. Where did they come 
from? Early in April the little brown 
creepers are clambering like woodpeckers 
over tree trunks and limbs, the purple 
finches are plucking buds from various 
trees, and the golden crowned kinglets 
are driving a vigorous business among 
the village shade trees, in groves and in 
thickets bordering marshes and streams, 
\ but in about thirty days these have 
vanished'as mysteriously as they came. 
\ Then come the early May mornings, 
and somehow with them that wonderful 
group of woodland warblers, clad in in¬ 
approachable wedding robes, evolved 
during the centuries in the solitudes of 
American forests. But in about three 
weeks nearly every species of this beauti¬ 
ful train vanishes. Year after year they 
come and go as regularly as the tides. 
But the warblers do not reach us alone. 
With them come the swallows, the green- 
lets and many of the finches as well as 
numerous other species, some to remain 
during the summer to build their nests 
and rear their young, while others pause 
for a day and then hasten on. 
. On the other side of summer, during 
the later days of September and early 
October, those birds which come sudden¬ 
ly in the spring, and as quickly vanish 
again, reappear but only to set off in a 
few short days. 
These sudden appearances and disap¬ 
pearances of birds have, from the earliest 
periods, attracted the attention of people, 
both civilized and uncivilized. So stout¬ 
ly and persistently has it been affirmed 
that swallows hibernate in the mud at 
the bottom of ponds and streams, as 
frogs do, that it is still believed to be 
the fact by some people both in this coun¬ 
try and in Europe; and yet it is a well- 
established fact that the great majority 
of birds in the cold and temperate zones 
of the northern hemisphere make longer 
or shorter journeys regularly twice each 
year. 
Every spring a vast throng o? feather¬ 
ed forms turn their faces poleward to 
repopulate nearly a full third of the 
land and shore waters of the northern 
hemisphere. "With heads full of plans, 
breasts full of feeling and tin oats full 
of song, they turn their backs upon the 
