EARLY IDEAS OF MIGRATION 117 



and the 1811 edition has his name on the title, but 

 Mr A. C. Smith shows that the real writer was a 

 comparatively unknown man, John Legg. Legg 

 must be looked upon as one of our first real students 

 of migration. It is Legg who refers to a pamphlet 

 which appeared in 1740 in which it was seriously 

 argued that swallows migrated annually to the moon. 



All this time, from 1736 onwards, the family of 

 Marsham in Norfolk, had been quietly recording ob- 

 servations on the arrival of migrants, each generation 

 continuing the work. The accumulated results have 

 been used, and will be used again, in studying the 

 science of ' ornithophaenology/' 



A mvth, founded on mistaken observation as well 



v 



as upon mere speculation was, and to some extent 

 still is, that the larger migrants assist the passage 

 of the weaker ones. How else, is still asked, can 

 weak- winged species cross the sea ? It was an old 

 legend when J. G. Gmelin heard it from the Tartars 

 in 1740 ; each crane they told him took a corncrake 

 on its back. There are men who know the corn- 

 crake well, who believe to-day that the bird must 

 skulk unseen through the winter, for they assert it 

 is quite incapable of lengthy flight. It is useless to 

 argue with them ; the only answer is that it not 

 only can, but regularly does perform a long double 

 journey ; its range extending from northern Europe 

 to South Africa. In 1911 I handled a water- rail, 



