WILD BIRDS IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS.

NZ Truth, Issue 68, 6 October 1906, Page 6

WILD BIRDS IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS.

"Millions of birds go to the Arctic region to breed," said an explorer. "They get there the finest, rarest food that is to be found m the whole world. '"The vegetation of the tundra, or great Arctic swamp, consists of cranberries, cloudberries, and crowberries—hundreds of millions of. bushes and hundreds of millions of fruit. "This fruit is not ripe till the end of the brief, fierce Arctic summer of incessant sunshine, but the birds arrive at the summer's beginning— they arrive the first day of the melting of the snows. "And they would starve, waiting for the tundra's fruit to ripen; but for a miracle, a miracle that permits them to eat last year's instead of this year's fruit. "For the berries of the tundra are, no sooner ; ripe at a summer's end than the snow covers them, lying for., ten months on them. iii an impervious* airtight, frozen mantle of white, and with : th'e next/ summer; Avhen the snow melts away, there are revealed billions on billions of perfectly fresh berries, firm and' cold and sweet, stretching across the breadth of Asia. . ' , "This is the birds refrigerator, the oldest, the largest, the most perfect one m the . world. Across Asia it stretches, and for almost a year it keeps sweet the world's, biggest berry crop. • "This crop the nesting birds, when they arrive '"at the melting of the shows, find spread before them— a last year's crop, but quite a fresh and sweet one, so superb its refrigeration has been. "Since the world's beginning this annual miracle has -happened, and since the world's beginning the birds of the world have gone to the Arctic to lay and hatch their eggs, because there, each slimmer, more food than they can eat is spread for miles before' them,