BIRD MIGRATION IN SOLWAY 199 



to correlate the migration voices with the birds that utter 

 them. 



As an example of the Swimmers let me instance the 

 Barnacle Goose, which is the characteristic wild goose of the 

 Solway flats, found in more or less abundance from autumn 

 till late in spring on the particular kind of haunt that suits 

 its habits. About the closing days of September one 

 seldom fails to note them coming down from their summer 

 habitat. I have always seen them on this flight in the 

 afternoon and towards evening, and only seldom have I 

 detected their well-known repeated calls after nightfall. It 

 would thus appear that they prefer the daylight for flight. 

 They are, in clear weather, at so high an altitude that they 

 can be seen only with difficulty, although even at such a height 

 their calls will be distinctly audible to a sharp ear. If one 

 of those calm sunny days with a few streaks of white fleecy 

 clouds specking the blue sky should come at the period 

 mentioned : on such a day as the gossamer threads float 

 along on the gentlest of breezes, when the Starlings and 

 Jackdaws and Black-headed Gulls, hawk, swallow-like, after 

 dies ; then lift your eyes skywards, watch keenly and listen 

 intently, and almost certainly one will detect the forerunners 

 of the Barnacle Geese that during winter form such an 

 interesting part of the avifauna of the Solway banks. On a 

 day in early October in the year iSSi my dear old friend, 

 William Lennon, the entomologist, and myself were having 

 a ramble across the Blackshaw, the wide sandbank that 

 stretches for miles eastwards from the left side of the 

 entrance to the Nith. We came upon a flock of Barnacles 

 resting after their long journey from the Arctics. The vast 

 majority of a flock, that we estimated at not less than 

 10,000 birds, were sound asleep, and those at the side of 

 the assemblage that we approached were so tired that they 

 merely lifted their heads and looked at us, walking away, 

 and not flying unless we came nearer than thirty yards. I 

 never saw such a sight before or since. These geese could 

 have been walked up to, and shot, by anybody, but once 

 they had wakened up from the sleep of utter exhaustion, an 

 hour or two later, the best gunner on the firth would have 

 required to "put in all he knew" to get within range at all. 



