BY THE WAYSIDE 
59 
birds. What guide-boards can direct the 
course of these birds during the hours 
of darkness and light through which 
their flight must continue ? Do you 
say that the two islands of New Zealand 
present a linear extent of 1,000 miles 
against which the Australian cuckoo flies 
in a line nearly at right angles, and 
that, possessing any sense of direction 
at all, he ought not to miss so long a 
mark? This may be, but birds do hit 
[ smaller marks than this, and that over 
1 a longer range than 1,000 miles. They 
come back to the forty-acre lot occupied 
the summer before and even to the old 
nest, I have no doubt, 
u There are two varieties of the meadow 
I lark, one with which we are all so fa¬ 
miliar, and the other living west of the 
Mississippi, whose Amice sounds very dif¬ 
ferent from that of our bird and whose 
color is lighter. Six miles Avest of River 
Falls, just across Lake St. Croix in Min¬ 
nesota this western variety breeds year 
after year on the very banks of the'lake, 
and yet in the eight years we have lived 
here Ave have seen but a single pair of 
these birds on this side of the river. The 
soil, climate, vegetation, and topographic 
features even, are the same on both sides 
of the river. Noav, unless these birds 
knoAV very definitely the fields in Avhich 
they AA r ere hatched and in Avhich they 
[ have lived, you would scarcely expect a 
stream of water to mark so sharp a 
boundary for their dAvelling places. Do 
I you suggest that these birds have simply 
to remember that their home lies to the 
westward of the Father of Waters, and 
that during their journeys they have sim¬ 
ply to keep on the right side? Even if 
this be true, must we not still grant to 
the birds an extremely vivid memory 
1 picture of the old home and its suround- 
ings to enable them to pass tributary 
after tributary, grove after grove, and 
field after field, and single out the cher¬ 
ished spot from all the rest ? 
To me it seems beyond all question 
that most birds have the faculty of form¬ 
ing and retaining memory pictures of 
localities in far greater detail and vivid¬ 
ness than human beings ever do, else 
how could they find their nests after the 
long excursions made for food? What 
one of you will lay doAvn a precious ar¬ 
ticle among the grass in the midst of a 
meadow, where the long vvavtng heads 
are of the same height and all so nearly 
alike, and fly aAvay to some distant field, 
making no trail nor setting up conspicu¬ 
ous marks, thinking to come back to the 
spot again Avithout difficulty? And yet 
this is what many a bird does, and does 
it without apparent difficulty. 
The case of our tiny humming bird 
which carefully sets its diminutive nest 
upon one of a hundred limbs in a tree 
Avhich is itself one of millions, seeming¬ 
ly like it. in a vast forest, and then takes 
great pains to deck it all over with the 
lichens gro\A T ing on the boughs of the 
tree in order that it may be still less 
conspicuous, is even more wonderful to 
me, for these birds wander far away 
from their nests into open fields and 
meadows, where floA\ r ers abound, in 
quest of insects and nectar; and yet, two 
small eyes, scarcely larger than cockle 
seeds, form the pictures of all those, to 
us, monotonous scenes, and a brain out- 
Aveighed by a grain of barley must regis¬ 
ter and recall them as occasion demands. 
But how do these birds determine the 
proper time of starting upon these long 
journeys in order to arrive Avith such 
promptness at their distant places? 
Nothing can be more certain than that 
they do know the times, hut how they 
(Continued on P, 62) 
