Part 26

The Bobolink Route

Maps, showing the route of migrant bobolinks may be found in Bird, Migration (Cooke), page 6;

Our Greatest Travelers (Cooke), page 365.

Other interesting accounts of bird-migrations may be found in Travels of Birds (Chapman).

Bird Study Book (Pearson), chapter IV.

History tells us when Columbus discovered Cuba and when Sebastian Cabot sailed up the Paraguay River; but when bobolinks discovered that island, or first crossed that river, no man can ever know. The physical perfection that permits such journeys as birds take is cause for admiration. In this connection much of interest will be found in

The Bird (Beebe), chapter VII, "The Breath of a Bird," from which we make a brief quotation. "Birds require, comparatively, a vastly greater strength and 'wind' in traversing such a thin, unsupporting medium as air than animals need for terrestrial locomotion. Even more wonderful than mere flight is the performance of a bird when it springs from the ground, and goes circling upward higher and higher on rapidly beating wings, all the while pouring forth a continuous series of musical notes.... A human singer is compelled to put forth all his energy in his vocal efforts; and if, while singing, he should start on a run even on level ground, he Would become exhausted at once.... The average person uses only about one seventh of his lung capacity in ordinary breathing, the rest of the air remaining at the bottom of the lung, being termed 'residual.' As this is vitiated by its stay in the lung, it does harm rather than good by its presence.... As we have seen, the lungs of a bird are small and non-elastic, but this is more than compensated by the continuous passage of fresh air, passing not only into but entirely through the lungs into the air-sacs, giving, therefore, the very best chance for oxygenation to take place in every portion of the lungs. When we compare the estimated number of breaths which birds and men take in a minute,--thirteen to sixteen in the latter, twenty to sixty in birds,--we realize better how birds can perform such wonderful feats of song and flight."

A BOOK LIST

For getting acquainted with birds, we no more need books than we need books for getting acquainted with people. One bird, if rightly known,--as with one person understood,--will teach us more than we can learn by reading. But since no one has time to learn for himself more than a few things about many birds, or many things about a few birds, it is pleasant and companionable and helpful to have even a second-hand share in what other people have learned. For myself, I like to watch both the bird in the bush through my own eyes and the bird in the book through the eyes of some other observer. So it seems but fair to share the names of books that have interested me in one way or another during the preparation of my own. If it seems to anyone a short list, I can but say that I do not know all the good books about birds, and therefore many (and perhaps some of the best) have been omitted. If it seems to anyone a long list, I would suggest that, if it contains more than you may find in your public library, or more than you care to put on your own shelves, or more than can be secured for the school library, the list may be helpful for selection--perhaps some of them will be where you can find and use them. Certain of them, as their titles indicate, are devoted exclusively to birds; and others include other outdoor things as well--as happens many a time when we start out on a bird-quest of our own, and find other treasures, too, in plenty.

If I could have but two of the books on the list, they would be "The Story of Opal," the nature-word of a child who well may lead us, and "Handbook of Nature-Study," the nature-word of a wise teacher of teachers.

BOOKS, BULLETINS, AND LEAFLETS

American Birds, Studied and Photographed from Life. LOVELL FINLEY. Charles Scribner's Sons.

Attracting Birds about the Home. Bulletin No. 1: The National Association of Audubon Societies.

Bird, The. C. WILLIAM BEEBE. Henry Holt and Company

Bird Book. FANNIE HARDY ECKSTORM. D. C. Heath & Co.

Bird Houses and How to Build Them. NED DEARBORN. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture; Farmer's Bulletin 609.

Bird Migration. WELLS W. COOKE. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture; Bulletin 185.

Bird Neighbors. NELTJE BLANCHAN. Doubleday, Page & Co.

Bird Studies with a Camera. FRANK M. CHAPMAN. D. Appleton & Co.

Bird Study Book. T. GILBERT PEARSON. Doubleday, Page & Co.

Birds in their Relation to Man. CLARENCE M. WEED and NED DEARBORN. J. B. Lippincott Co.

Birds of Maine. ORA WILLIS KNIGHT.

Birds of New York. ELON HOWARD EATON. Memoir 12; N.Y. State Museum.

(The 106 colored plates by Louis Agassiz Fuertes can be secured separately.)

Birds of Ohio. WILLIAM LEON DAWSON. The Wheaton Publishing Co.

Birds of Village and Field. FLORENCE A. MERRIAM. Houghton Mifflin Co.

Birds of the United States, East of the Rocky Mountains. AUSTIN C. APGAR. American Book Company.

Burgess Bird Book for Children. THORNTON W. BURGESS. Little, Brown & Co.