The Scottish Naturalist. 237 



few remain all winter, as noted by Colonel Wedderburn, they are 

 recruited by fresh arrivals on their passage north in February 

 and the ensuing months of March and April (' Ber. Nat.,' p. 53). 

 Wilson, in his 'American Ornithology,' makes mention of their 

 frequently being met at sea, and instances one occasion, when 

 at more than 100 miles from land, three of these birds dashed 

 against the binnacle of a ship returning from the West Indies, 

 breaking the glass and putting out the light, to the great alarm 

 of the steersman : two were killed on the spot, and one died 

 soon after. In regard to these great flights of birds, Mr Jones 

 has collected many interesting facts, and, among others, relates 

 one in which Captain Edwin Jones of the schooner Bigelow (' Ber. 

 Nat./ p. 75), when at a distance of about 500 or 600 miles to the 

 east of Bermuda, on or about the 12th or 13th of September 185 1, 

 the weather being fine, with a light easterly breeze, fell in with great 

 multitudes of birds, which were taken to be the American Plover 

 ( C/iaradrius 7?iar??iorattis), passing over the vessel in a southerly 

 direction for two days in succession, in flocks, some of many 

 thousands, some considerably less, diminishing to parties of fifty 

 to thirty ; and during the whole of the intervening night these 

 flocks were distinctly heard passing over the ship. A portion 

 of this flight Mr Jones believes to have been driven upon the 

 Island of Barbadoes, shortly afterwards, having been checked on 

 their course by a southerly gale, on which occasion the birds 

 were so numerous that thousands were shot down, and many 

 killed with stones. So many authentic instances are there on 

 record of the enormous arrivals of these birds on different parts 

 of the West Indian Archipelago, direct from the north, with no 

 corresponding notice of their resting on the Bermudas, that it 

 seems quite to corroborate Mr Jones's opinion that the line of 

 passage is chiefly to the eastward of those islands, in which I 

 quite concur as regards the Plover, showing that doubtless the 

 whole distance is often performed in a single flight, without rest 

 and without food ; and my firm belief is, from the course taken, 

 that when these flights are not met by adverse winds, and thereby 

 thrown upon the West India Islands, that they reach some of 

 the northern shores of South America without a halt. So that 

 the fact of birds crossing the Mediterranean, even were they to 

 do so, in a direct line from the south of France to the African 

 shores, without touching on any of the islands, a distance in no 

 place over 500 miles, completely falls into the shade and sinks 

 into insignificance in comparison with these stupendous ocean 



