Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 186, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1911 — Migratory Birds. [ARTICLE]

Migratory Birds.

In a recent issue of the National Geographic Magazine Mr. Wells Cook of the United States biological survey, has presented an interesting study of bird migration. In his article he tells us that the cliff swallows which nest in Nova Scotia leave the Gulf coast of Mexico about March 10 and grrlve at their destination two months later, on May 10. Most of the birds that spend the winter in Central or South America, he says, take the direct route across the gulf instead of going via Texas or by way of Florida* Cuba or Yucatan, and this aerial journey means a single flight of from 600 to 700 miles with no alighting place. But the greatest traveler of all is the golden plover, which nests in summer on the arctic shores of North America, whence it migrates to Labrador, and at Nova Scotia begins a 2,500 mile flight to South America. Its winter home is in Argentina, and after a slx-month stay there is comes back across the gulf and up the Mississippi valley, and when it is 'again at its summer home it has covered about 15,000 miles. The arctic terns accomplish in 20 weeks a round trip of 22,000 miles between the arctic and antarctic oceans.