Most of them stop now and then, a day or two at a time, to feed and rest. They fly very high, and faster than our railroad trains can go.
In the spring the birds take their second long journey, back to their last year's home.
How they knew their way on these journeys, men have been for many years trying to find out. They have found that birds travel on regular roads, or routes, that follow the rivers and the shore of the ocean. They can see much better than we can, and even in the night they can see water.
One such road, or highway, is over the harbor of New York. When the statue of Liberty was set up on an island in the harbor a few years ago, it was put in the birds' path.
Usually they fly too high to mind it; but when there is a rain or fog they come much lower, and, sad to say, many of them fly against it and are killed.
We often see strange birds in our city streets and parks, while they are passing through on their migration, for they sometimes spend several days with us.
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Ernest Thompson Seton (1860—) was born in England, but has lived most of his life in America. He began his career as an artist. He made more than 1,000 drawings of birds and animals for the Century Dictionary. Later he began to write about animals and has achieved unusual success in that field. His Wild Animals at Home, Wild Animal Ways, The Biography of a Grizzly, and Wild Animals I Have Known are all greatly enjoyed by young people. ("The Poacher and the Silver Fox" is taken from the first-mentioned book, by permission of the publishers, Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, New York.)
THE POACHER AND THE SILVER FOX
ERNEST THOMPSON SETON