16 THE AUDUBON BU DE hee 
After winter the great spring migration begins and group after group 
moves north with the advancing sun. On they go, propelled by an irresistible 
impulse—they know not what it is and man can hardly conjecture; blue- 
birds, blackbirds, sparrows, shore birds, water birds, ducks, geese, hawks, 
thrushes, warblers—large and small, silent or singing, moving by day or 
moving by night, according to their habit. Then comes mating time, nesting 
time, brooding time, molting time, feeding time, and they are ready for the 
return migratory movement to the south. 
Some from the Arctic Circle travel to the Antarctic Circle, some move 
no more than a few hundred miles from the northern feeding ground to 
southern feeding ground, stopping at various feeding stations on the way. 
The golden plover travels from the Arctic prairies to Patagonia, our robins 
no farther than the gulf coast. There is a great stream of crows from east 
to west over the dunes, moving from their nesting grounds in Michigan and 
to the northward back to their winter feeding grounds in central Illinois and 
Missouri. Wave after wave passes by, silent, serious, or uttering only the 
call notes necessary to guide them through the dark nights. Finally the last 
wedges of geese have passed on. Winter closes in and winter birds begin to 
arrive—old squaw on the lake, evening grosbeaks in the woods. 
But what of those that are gone and are seldom seen even in migra- 
tion? In times past there can be no question that the great blue heron, the 
sandhill crane, the Canada goose, many ducks, the bald eagle, the osprey, 
the passenger pigeon, the Carolina paroquet, and others nested in or near 
the dunes. Some of these are all but extinct, a few Carolina paroquets 
linger in southern Florida, a few sandhill cranes in Manitoba. 
But what of those that are gone forever? What of the immense flocks 
of passenger pigeons which no doubt in times gone by dropped into the 
Duneland to feast on the acorns so abundant there or to nest and rear their 
young? Their last migration has been flown—they are gone forever, de- 
stroyed by the hand of man. 
(NotE—The above article by the late William D. Richardson, who was 
well-known to many of our members for his writings as well as his splendid 
camera studies of birds and plants, was prepared for The Exposure, bulletin 
of the Chicago Camera Club, and published in its November, 1923, issue.) 
jahg  e Sie 
MEMBERS AND friends of the Society who filled the auditorium of the 
Chicago Academy of Sciences. for the lecture on “Birds from Sea to Sierra,” 
given by Charles Albert Harwell of Berkeley, California, on the evening 
of October 27, at its close were congratulating each other on having been 
there and proclaiming it one of the finest in their experience. His demon- 
stration of various bird songs, from the high-pitched note of the chickadee 
to the gutteral of the great blue heron, covering a range of six full octaves, 
was fascinating, accompanied as it was by humorous running comment. 
This was followed by four reels of colored movies showing birds of the sea 
coast, the desert, the Sacramento Valley, and the higher levels of Yosemite 
National Park. It was entertaining, inspiring, informative, and an al- 
together delightful evening. . 
