Show ARE BIRDS GUIDED BY STARS an attempt to solve the great or in an article on birds of passage the says if one desires an explanation for alie great mystery of bird migration there being nothing else that will answer he will have to accept the theory of hereditary knowledge a knowledge of the unfailing stars the great bear and orion appeared at the same time in our region even when the divisions of land and water were very different than they are today to day that the stars are the guides for birds agrees with the fact that they fly at remarkable heights often above the clouds and that wanderers lose their way when they stray into clouds and mists on starlight nights straggling birds are seldom noticed when the sky is overcast when the night is dark but especially when a fine rain is falling multitudes of traveling birds are bieard then they call often doubtless for the purpose of keeping near each other and often great numbers of them bound against the windows of lighthouses thus gatke has observed that on october from ten at night till the next morning golden created wrens bumped like snowflakes against the lighthouse of Heli goland and that on the following day golden created wrens eat on every square foot of Heli goland toward the end of the summer along into the fall it was not a rare occurrence on dark nights to see through the light of street lamps birds flying over inland cities the experienced observer by its call the curlew find the sea swallow and seagull occasionally hears evan the flap of their wings but no bird is visible in the darkness on dark nights no stars appear then it is thaltha straying bird loses his way the stars are the most plausible guides to birds in their migrations but only the future can tell us whether they really serve in that capacity |