File:The story of the birds; (1897) (14751091755).jpg

Identifier: storyofbirds00bask (find matches)
Title: The story of the birds;
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Baskett, James Newton, 1849-1925
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and Company
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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wouldfollow it back and build their nests as near as possibleto the old home location, placing them often, no doubt,under the very brow of the glacier. In time the icereceded to its j)resent limit, and the habit once set uphas caused many birds to follow it yet. Others haveset the limit farther south, with all degrees of gra-dation, for the old tropical climate never came againto the arctics. If this view be correct it will be readily seen thatthe habit of migration thus set up and continuedwould prevent the traveling birds from becominghardened to winter or adapting themselves to a win-ter diet, because the first cool blast, or even the dim-ming and lowering toward the south of the autumnsun, would send them south, doubtless, with the in-herited impression that the great ice billow was creep-ing down yet only a short distance north of them ;just as the little kitten while yet blind hisses at theodor of the friendly dog, because his tribe has so longbeen the enemy of its ancestry. 15
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A byway of the birds. HOW AND WHY DO BIRDS TRAVEL? 179 But experience has, nevertheless, crept into someof the birds, and many that doubtless formerly wentsouth with their tribe now remain and endure ourwinters. Others that could well stay still go yet,while with some others still the old tendency seemsstronger at some seasons than others, and they maygo or they may stay, according to some fancy that isnot often apparent. Thus all the flickers or redheadsmay leave a certain region one winter, though it bemilder than the one previous, when they stayed ; andit is certain (in some regions at least) that robins, blue-birds, and others remain all the year around (or tendto remain) much more frequently than formerly whenthey find a friendly haunt. There is another element in migration that is indirect opposition apparently to that just noticed.Birds of evident southern origin, having most oftheir species resident south, as humming birds, tana-gers, etc., and showing by their nest, as noted

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