MIGRATION REPORT 165 



I am glad of the good progress you have been making 

 in the Migration Report. It is impossible for me to say 

 what your ingenuity may not have evolved out of all 

 the records in the Field and elsewhere that you have 

 been working at ; but I own I shall be surprised if you 

 are able to lay down any " land routes," my ideas being 

 that local influence is beyond human intelligence and 

 consequently calculation. However, we shall see, and 

 I will admit that there are a few recorded facts that seem 

 to show it is subject to rule : e.g. I have known year 

 after year a Woodcock to be flushed under a particular 

 tree, fly out to the open in a particular place, and be then 

 shot by a gun placed for the purpose ! Then there is 

 that Rough-legged Buzzard which used to fly year after 

 year to a particular dead tree at Northrepps and be 

 always shot dead ! These things incline one to believe that 

 there may be land routes ; but who is to lay them down ? * 



Barrington's evidence as to long-winged or short- 

 winged examples of the same species of bird strongly 

 confirms what I put forth in " D.B." (p. 557), and that 

 is really only the legitimate deduction of what Tristram 

 had already observed in the passage (Ibis, 1865, p. 77), 

 to which I there refer. There is nothing to show that 

 the age of the individual has anything to do with the 

 matter, and I don't think it has. It is simply that the 

 longest-winged birds go furthest in each direction, and 

 apparently start soonest. It seems to me quite natural 

 that they should do so. The tendency of long-winged 

 individuals is to breed others as long-winged, or even 

 longer, and so the thing goes on, and has been going on 

 for ages. This may point to the polar origin of life, and 

 certainly does not contradict such a supposition ; but 

 it can't be said to go far to support it. All I think one 

 can say is that if the hypothesis that Life originated at 

 the Pole be true, the fact would very likely account for 

 the facts as we find them. Further than that it would 

 hardly be safe to go at present, j 



* Letter to W. Eagle-Clarke, AprU 7, 1900. 



f Letter to J. A. Harvie-Brown, November 2, 1900. 



