Why the Birds Come Back in Spring?
The birds, however, have no charts or compasses to guide them. We do not know as yet absolutely what it is that enables the bird to find its way back and forth to the same spot year after year. As nearly as we have been able to ascertain, the birds after they mate and build their first nest and bring up their first family, develop a fondness for that particular spot which is much the same as the instinct in man which we call the “homing instinct.” Man becomes attached to one particular spot which he calls home and wherever he is thereafter, he is very likely to think of the old locality when he thinks of home, and there are very few of us but have yearnings to go back to the old “home locality” every now and then. The environment in which a bird or human being is brought up generally becomes to a greater or less extent a permanent part of him in this sense.