5 MAY 1928, Page 14

QUAKER HABITS.

The moral is that airmen will not penetrate the secrets of migration by inventing theories ; but they may very easily increase knowledge if they will consciously and deliberately follow along the known migration routes and accumulate details about the height at which various species fly and cor relate their movements with the winds and air currents at different levels. One of the oddities of migration—itself enough to disprove the theory of the master influence of the wind—is the arrival of the males in advance of the females. One Quaker detachment may arrive with a west wind and another with an east. A detail on which British ornitholo- gists particularly desire knowledge is the degree of segregation of the sexes during the winter. How far, for example, do cock and hen nightingales keep separate between the time when they leave Britain and return ? For it seems to be estab_ lished that the bachelor bands precede the hens on the return journey.

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