BIRD AND ANIMAL MIGRATION

Taranaki Daily News, 11 September 1934, Page 29 (Supplement)

BIRD AND ANIMAL MIGRATION

THEIR WONDERFUL INSTINCT. The way birds and. animals regularly move from one spot to another with the change of seasons is one of the most remarkable and interesting features of; Nature. > The Arctic* tern travels over 11,000 miles, from its summer home in North America to the Antarctic, rehirning north for the following summer.' The lemmirig—a little rat-like creature—periodically leaves its home in Northern Norway and Sweden, and, travelling in a vast army, moves westward, . driven. by some powerful instinct that it cannot but obey. Thousands of them, perish on the way, for the instinct I have mentioned drives them on through water, and all other objects, regardless-of the consequences. During the'summer the African elephant goes two miles up Mount Kenya, and does not return to the plains till the heat of summer has gone. Penguins leave the island of Tristan Da Cunha in April of each year,, but it is not known where they go. The tiger which inhabits Manchuria migrates , in winter to the island of Sakhalin—crossing the sea on a bridge of ice. Whales travel regularly to the. cooler waters of the frigid zones as soon, as the summer comes in either hemisphere. In all cases, these birds and animals move from their homes from sheer necessity. In some cases it is because their natural food gives out at certain seasons, and in others because the, change of the seasons has made the climate tos hot or too cold for them. But what a wonderful instinct it : is that *. tells creature that it is time to be “moving, on”! '