Oct. 9, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
597 
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distance, the method being to ascertain how 
many graticule spaces are occupied by the aver¬ 
age mallard, widgeon, curlew, etc., at 100 and 
150 yards. When, then, a bird, broadside on, 
occupies an intermediate number of spaces, one 
arrives, by a simple mental proportion sum, at 
the distance it is away. This method has been 
tried as a means of finding the range of in¬ 
fantry, but here the ranges are longer, and it 
is not accurate enough to give useful results. 
For short distances up to 200 yards it serves 
well enough. 
In conclusion, I may add that a friend work¬ 
ing on the principles outlined above bagged this 
last autumn brent geese, mallard, curlew and 
widgeon in open weather when the shotgun peo¬ 
ple could do nothing. He is, however, a really 
first class rifle shot with great experience of 
target work. : !t 
HOW DO BIRDS FIND THEIR WAY 
HOME? 
In Harper’s for October Prof. John B. Wat¬ 
son tells of some intensely interesting experi¬ 
ments which he has made in an endeavor to 
discover whether birds have, as has been claim¬ 
ed, a homing instinct. 
“The question as to whether animals have a 
special homing sense can never be answered by 
experiments upon the homing pigeon. It was 
this thought which led me to make a study of 
distant orientation in two species of tropical 
birds which are found upon Bird Key—a little 
deserted mound of sand about three hundred 
yards in diameter lying in the middle of the 
Gulf of Mexico. This key is a member of the 
Dry Tortugas group (sixty-five miles due west 
from Key West). The birds in question are 
the noddy and sooty terns, belonging to the 
gull family, and not differing much in general 
size from the homing pigeon. In the fall and 
winter months they are to be found distributed 
generally over the tropical waters of the Carib¬ 
bean Sea. On the first day of May, almost to 
the day, about twenty-five to thirty thousand 
of them migrate to Bird Key and remain there 
for the nesting season. Bird Key is thus the 
northern limit of migration. A study of their 
habits shows that they do not go out over the 
water in their search for food for distances 
greater than fifteen to eighteen miles, conse¬ 
quently any distance north of Bird Key greater 
than this would take the birds into an unknown 
territory. Here, if anywhere then, we have 
material at hand for carrying out experiments 
upon distant orientation. We can send birds 
out over an ocean pathway or we can send them 
inland. My experiments have not been carried 
very far at the present time, but they have al¬ 
ready progressed far enough to give some really 
astonishing results. 
“After the egg is laid the male and female 
birds take turns at brooding, and one is always 
to be found at the nest. At this time the birds 
are bold and can be captured easily. After 
being captured they are marked individually 
with large streaks of different colored oil paints. 
These markings can be so varied that each bird 
sent out has a different marking. The nest is 
then tagged, showing the time of the bird’s re¬ 
moval. On the early morning of June 13 five 
birds were put into a large insect cage and given 
into the charge of Dr. H. E. Jordan, who was 
returning to New York. He carried the birds 
via the Government tug to Key West. There 
food was purchased for them (small minnows). 
At three in the morning of Friday the 14th, Dr. 
Jordan boarded the Mallory boat Denver, which 
was leaving Key West at that time for New 
York. On board the boat the birds (which 
were carried in the hold of the vessel) were 
both watered and fed. On Sunday, the 16th. 
at nine in the morning, the birds were released 
at latitude 35 0 , longitude 73° 10' (approximately 
twelve miles east of Cape Hatteras). The wind 
was fair and fresh for several days after the 
birds were released. I kept their nests under 
constant observation, but had almost given up 
hope of their return when, to my surprise, on 
June 21, at half past eight in the morning, I 
found two of the marked birds upon their re¬ 
spective nests. The nest mates of the other 
three birds had taken new nest companions, con¬ 
sequently had the marked birds returned they 
would have been unable to obtain possession of 
the nest. A few days later I by chance observed 
one of the marked birds attempting to alight 
at its own nest. It was immediately driven 
away. Three of the five birds are thus known 
to have returned. I have little doubt that the 
other two birds also returned. The distance in 
a straight line from Hatteras to Bird Key is 
approximately 850 miles. The alongshore route 
is about 1,081 miles. The latter is the route in 
all probability chosen by the birds, since by 
studying their habits I found that they do not 
fly at night nor swim nor rest upon the water, 
and yet are dependent upon the ocean for their 
food and water. This distance was covered in 
a little less than six days.” 
THE ANTIQUITY OF THE DRY FLY. 
Nothing can be plainer, even if we had not 
the actual records which in Ireland we have, 
than that the prehistoric trout angler was a 
dapper or fisher of the natural insect, says W. 
Fletcher in the Field. He saw the trout taking 
down the fly, and the rest followed. It was 
long years later, for instance, that men dis¬ 
covered that trout took any aquatic food, the 
conspicuous always coming first, and long con¬ 
tinuing to hold the field. Then the difficulties 
and limitations inherent in dapping drove the 
angler to imitating the fly by artificial means, 
and this in due time he managed; and, of course, 
he was just as careful to fish it in a life-like 
way as to dress it so, and therefore he was, ac¬ 
cording to his lights, a dry-fly man pure 1 and 
simple, and nothing else. It was impossible it 
could be otherwise, for to suppose a trout 
would take a fly submerged and dodging about 
under the surface was to the primitive angler 
naturally a thing unthinkable. The fly was 
fished dry, and it killed; but things were, after 
all, primitive, and the fly would sink, especially 
in wet weather, in spite of all the efforts of the 
angler to prevent it. 
And it was when recovering his sunken be¬ 
draggled fly that, to his amazement, he hooked 
a trout, and so discovered in this way wet-fly 
fishing. The primitive art—a true inductive 
invention—was at once superseded by the 
simpler and easier method, and slept a deep 
sleep, only to be broken in our own times. 
This explains how anglers have continued 
through all the ages to call the things they 
fished “flies,” and tie them in imitation of 
real insects. It is a tradition of a lost art im¬ 
ported into another and different art, where, 
indeed, it looks ridiculous enough. That any 
human being could, a priori, carefully dress a 
fly in exact imitation of a bluebottle, for in¬ 
stance, or a Mayfly, and then propose to drag 
it about under water to catch trout with it, is 
too preposterous a supposition to be enter¬ 
tained for a moment. The wet fly is, in fact, a 
discovery, the dry an invention, and in the case 
of the former we have not by any means fully 
realized as yet what we have actually dis¬ 
covered, either in the case of trout or salmon 
by fishing. 
MARKING MIGRATING BIRDS. 
A short while ago a stork was shot in 
Rhodesia bearing upon its leg a metal ring, 
which proved that the bird had been marked in 
Prussia, when it was a nestling, by the Rossit- 
ten Bird Observatory, while more recently a 
stork similarly “ringed” in Hungary was shot 
in the Kalahari Desert. 
The Shooting Times says that H. F. 
Witherby, the editor of “British Birds,” is 
inaugurating in connection with his magazine 
a scheme for marking birds in a similar way in 
this country. It is hoped by this means to gain 
a more exact idea of the movements of indi¬ 
vidual birds than has ever been possible by any 
other method, and this should not only throw 
light upon the more general aspects of migra¬ 
tion but it should tell us a great deal that is at 
present obscure with regard to particular 
points. For example, while we may know the 
general distribution of a species in winter and 
summer, we do not know the extent of the mi¬ 
gration of individual birds, or, indeed, whether 
in such cases as the song-thrush and robin cer¬ 
tain individuals migrate at all. The movements 
of sea-birds are very little understood, and 
much might be learned from marking a large 
number. This plan might also tell us what in¬ 
fluence age has upon plumage, etc.; where a 
young bird whose birthplace is known breeds; 
whether individuals return to previous nesting 
haunts, and whether pairs come together again 
in successive breeding seasons. 
A number of the readers of “British Birds” 
are taking the matter up, and it is expected that 
a large number of birds of all kinds will be 
ringed this summer. The rings are extremely 
light, and do not in any way interfere with the ; 
