Birds Like To Travel

Why do the birds flit southward each antninn and return again with every spring? No one kuows, but science, in the person of Professor Wang, the eminent Austrian om ithologist, has just disclosed that the ?sual flippant answer to tuis question, 'Because they like to travel, ' ' is not iar out of the way, af ter alL In a lecture that Professor Waag recently delivered at Vienna he gave some extremely interesting details regarding the migrations of birds, all of which migrations resemble one another in two respects: They follow the most direct line southward, and are made with almost incredible rapidity. Numerons observations have been made at Helgoland, -which is the principal halting place of birds of passage from northern countries, and of Egypt, which. is the winter home of many, and these obser vations have established some f acts hitherto unknown. The bluebirds traverse the 400 nautical miles which separate Egypt from Helgoland in a single night, which is at the rate of more than 40 geographical miles per honr. The swallow's speed is over 2% miles per minute, or nearly three times that of the fastest railway train. Even the younger birds, 6 or 8 weeks old, accompany the others in their journey. Professor Wang asks himself what is the impulse which canses the birds, after the brooding and molting season is over, to quit our nothern climate. He does not think it is fear of cold - for many species quite as delicate as those which migrate southward easily withstand the rigors of the winter - -but that they have an irresistible humor for traveling. This is his idea ofciÉhe fact, but he can give no eiplanation.