Routes of Migration

“Birds often seem eccentric in choice of route, and many land-birds do not take the shortest line. The fifty species from New England that winter in South America, instead of making the direct trip over the Atlantic, involving a flight of 2000 miles, take a slightly longer route which follows the coast of Florida, and passes thence, by island or mainland, to South America. What would seem, at first sight, to be a natural and convenient migratory highway extends from Florida through the Bahamas or Cuba to Haiti, Porto Rico, and the Lesser Antilles, and thence to South America.