ON THE MINOR FAUNAL AREAS 15 



individual birds and species, and field observations on their 

 flight and actions. We can instance the arrival of the noisy 

 Oyster-catcher most blatant of birds at the annual and 

 favourite nesting sites, as well as their equally noisy de- 

 partures and movements in autumn. Many times have I 

 also seen the surging to and fro to the north, and then to the 



o o 



south of many migrants in the valley of the great rivers ol 

 North Russia influenced one day by a warm sun and the 

 melting of the snows, and the next hurrying back upon their 

 tracks, fleeing for a space away from the next temporary 

 grasp of the Ice King. 



In conclusion, I wish to emphasise the intimate con- 

 nections existing between the initial phases of bird flight, 

 the greater migrations, the increase of species, and their 

 dispersal ; and, in order to illustrate the connection with our 

 neighbouring Continent and its avifauna, we add here a 

 short extract from W. Eagle Clarke's Digest, provided by him 

 at my request, and recommend such of our readers as have 

 not perused the full Digest to do so if they wish to learn 

 more. 



I trust we have shown some uses for the division of 

 larger areas into smaller ones the principal object of this 

 paper. 



I. Tntermigration between Britain and Northern Continental 

 Europe. Autumn migrants cross the North Sea and arrive on the 

 east shores of Britain at points between the Shetland Isles and the 

 Humber or the Wash (including the northern seaboard of Norfolk). 

 These immigrants and emigrants from and to Northern Europe pass 

 and repass between this portion of the Continent and Britain by 

 crossing the North Sea in autumn in a south-westerly direction, and 

 in spring in a north-easterly one, 1 and that, while the limit to their 

 flight on the north is the Shetland Islands, that on the south extends 

 to the coast of Norfolk. 2 During these movements the more southern 

 portion of the east coast of England is reached after the arrival of 

 the immigrants on the more northern portions. 



1 The direction varies. It is probably more westerly (in autumn) or easterly 

 (in spring) at the most northern British stations, and south-south-westerly (in 

 autumn) or north-north-easterly (in spring) at the stations on the east coast of 

 England. 



2 The formation adopted by the migrants during passage would seem to be 

 an extended line perhaps a series of lines whose right wing extends to the 

 Northern Islands and its left wing to the coast of Norfolk. 



