Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/524

506

O branch of ornithology offers more attractions to the student of birds than the fascinating subject of migration. Birds come and go; absent to-day, to-morrow they greet us from every tree and hedgerow. Their departure and arrival are governed by as yet unknown laws; their journeys through the pathless sky are directed by an instinct or reason which enables them to travel thousands of miles to a winter home, and in the spring to return to the nest of the preceding year.

Volumes have been written to explain their mysterious appearances and disappearances.

Theories almost as numerous as the essays themselves have been advanced to account for the phenomena of migration. From the time of Jeremiah (viii, 7) to the present day we might cite a host of authors who have contributed to the literature of the subject. It is not our intention, however, to review the whole question of migration. The combined researches of ornithologists have placed it among the sciences, and its more prominent facts are common knowledge. We desire here to call attention to but one phase of the study, and more especially to outline some recent investigations in connection with the nocturnal migrations of birds.

From the nature of the case, our data concerning these night flights have long been meager and unsatisfactory. Even now our information has but reached a stage which permits us to intelligently direct further effort.

We know that the land birds which migrate by night include species of more or less retiring disposition, whose comparatively limited powers of flight would render them easy victims for birds of prey if they ventured far from the protection of their natural haunts during the day. Thus we find that the bush-or tree-loving thrushes, wrens, warblers, and vireos all choose the night as the most advantageous time in which to make their long semiannual pilgrimage, while such bold rovers as swallows, swifts, and hawks migrate exclusively by day.

The information we possess concerning the manner in which the first-mentioned class of birds accomplish a journey which leads them from boreal regions to the tropics, has been derived from three sources: First, through the birds which are killed by striking lighthouses or electric-light towers; second, through observations made at night from similar structures; and, third, through the use of the telescope.

It has long been known that lighthouses are most destructive