requiring the exercise of no intelligence or instinct: the so-called migratory impulse being a blind force, like other forces in Nature,—a mere material force impelling the bird forward without any act of will or instinct. To quote Mr. Rowley:—"My idea about finding the way is this; the bird has as much to do with it as a man starting from London to York by the railway. He finds his way, steam conveys him; wind takes the bird. If the steam blows up, the passenger is killed; if the wind changes, the bird dies." Again, "The bird starts on its journey; after it has set forth it is ruled entirely by circumstances of which wind is the chief ... As a ship is ruled by the wind, so is the bird. The bird is a sailing ship, the tail is the rudder, and it is governed by the wind; and this is how it finds its way, just as seeds find their way," i.e., seeds conveyed by ocean currents to distant shores, or from one field to another by the wind.
From Mr. Rowley's theory I am obliged entirely to dissent; for I am satisfied that birds are not guided by the wind. The migratory instinct, or by whatever name we choose to call it, is not a blind force; it is an actual and wonderful intelligence, an instinct hereditary in the bird itself; an instinct called into play by various causes, food, vicissitudes of climate, sexual love; an instinct which has been in force, handed down through countless generations of birds, slowly modified from time to time by such circumstances as a gradual change of climate, or changes in the distribution of land and water,[1] but still an instinct mighty and all-sufficient for attaining its special object.
Birds are not mere automata, they are something more than this; we are much too apt to consider them from our own peculiar standpoint; we argue about them, their habits and movements, as we do also about other animals, from our own experience. What
- ↑ Before the enclosure and drainage of the Lincolnshire Fens enormous flocks of various wild-fowl visited the east coast every autumn in incredible numbers. At these times we are told a flock of wild ducks was observed passing along from the N. and N.E. into the East Fen in a continuous stream for eight hours together. Since the drainage and reclamation of the Fen lands the wild fowl have practically deserted our coast, the great migratory stream now passing down the opposite coast of Holland, our principal supply of wild fowl coming from that country. In the shallow waters of the Zuyder Zee, during the autumn migration, the sea is sometimes black for many miles with various ducks. Last year, during the first week of November, immense flocks of swan, geese, and ducks passed Heligoland.
