Weihaiwei, Aug. 8—~The first stragglers which precede the autumn migrations have alread; inspired me to re-read the notes of Hour Seebohm who was the first. real ornithologist fo survey the great breeding-grounds in Siberia, Scebohm had originally acquired a number of theories about migration from his observations in Europe: he practically considered migrations as "wanderings" and denied the existence of definite "highways" or "fly lines"; but his Siberian experiences some. sixty years Axo changed his views and enabled him to hay the foundations of our existing knowledge which traces the routes taken by birds passing with great regularity, up and down, through China and its seaboard," Among other theories, he became very interested in the suggestion that migration originated in the Tee Age. when a six thousand mile stretch of the earth's surface was frozen stiff, when tigers hunted reindeer in Southern Europe, and when birds were forced to leave their ancient homes in order to survive. This glacial period, he remarks, lasted about 120,000 years... time enough for any bird to change its habits! No wonder that such reading brought two pictures vividly to my mind! "The-first Is a true story just received a etter from home: the milkman on his early round is treated to a long tirade on the horrors of war by the housemaid; at the conclusion of which he (strong silent man) is heard fo remark ay he shoulders his cans, "Oh well!
will all blow over some day"! So now 1 picture a pre-historic man at the beginning of the Tee Age being soundly rated by. his most recently captured wife because he denies her an extra fur coat: so he (strong silent cave= man) having recently sold short on the local skin market, gently fingers his club and says, "Be silent you female (or whatever term of endearment' these cave men used)—this cold sap must finish some day." And to it'did. 120,000 years ater. "A. comforting thought which, taken in conjunction with the romane of the philosophical milkman, might well. be used as the basis of a cheerful editorial—rsaw,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.