Birds in the Arctic Regions.

Lake County Press, Issue 904, 29 March 1900, Page 7

Birds in the Arctic Regions.

The number of birds which go to the Arctic regions to breed is “ vast and beyond conception.” They go (says the “ Spectator”) not by thousands, but by millions, to rear their young on the tundra. The cause which attracts them is because nowhere in the world does Nature provide, at the same time and in the same place, “ such a lavish prodigality of food.” That the barren swamp of the tundra Should yield a food supply so great as to tempt birds to make journeys of thousands of miles to rear their young in a land of plenty only to be found beyond the Arctic - Circle seems incredible. The vegetation largely consists of cranberry, cloudberry, and crow'berry bushes. Forced by the perpetual sunshine of the Arctic summer, tlmse bear enormous crops of fruit. But the crop is not ripe until' the middle and end of the Arctic summer, and if the fruit-eating birds had to wait until it was ripe they would starye, for they arrive on the very day of the melting of the snow. But each year the snow descends on this immense crop of ripe fru'. before the birds have time to gather it. It is then preserved beneath the snow', perfectly fresh and pure, and the melting of the snow discloses the bushes with the unconsumed last year’s crop hanging on them, or lying ready to be eaten, on the ground. The frozen meal stretches across the breadth of Asia. It never decays, and is accessible the moment the snow melts. Ages have taught the birds that they have only to fly to the Arctic Circle to find such a store of “ crystallised fruits” as will last them till the bushes are once more forced into bearing by the perpetual sunlight. The same heats which free the fruits bring into being the most prolific insect life in the w'orld ; the mosquito swarms on the tundra. ao European can live there without a veil after the snow melts, the gun barrels are black with them, and the cloud often, obscures the sight. Thus the Insect-eat-ing birds have only to open their mouths •to fill them with mosquitoes, the presence of swarms of tender little warblers, chiff-chaffs, pipits, and wagtails in this Arctic region is accounted for.