238 The Scottish Naturalist. 



journeys, and is quite sufficient to show that the width of water 

 required to put a stop to migration would be somewhat difficult 

 to define. It is not only in tempestuous weather that the remote 

 islands of the Bermudas are resorted to by migratory birds, but 

 it is the abode in winter of several American species. The 

 Belted Kingfisher {Alcedo alcyon) arrives regularly in September, 

 taking its departure in April ; the American Bittern [Ardea 

 lentigiiwsa) and the green Heron {Ardea virescens) I have noticed 

 every winter in the mangrove swamps about St George's, the 

 latter sometimes in considerable numbers, together with some 

 others. The number of species that may be taken as occasional, 

 accidental, or even pretty regular in their visits, is very large ; 

 and some I have seen arrive in quite moderate weather, and with 

 the show of so little fatigue as to be quite surprising. On one 

 occasion I noticed a flock of some fifty small birds coming in 

 straight from the sea in a north-westerly direction. The nearest 

 land would be Cape Hatteras, a distance of 600 miles ; but from 

 the direction they were flying, their starting-point was probably 

 further north, say Cape Cod, 650 miles. Yet these birds, which 

 had been flying in a long, straggling line, on reaching land 

 moved up into a body, and after wheeling several times round, 

 lighted upon some cedar-trees close to me, without any apparent 

 sign of distress. They proved to be the Pine-creeping Warbler 

 {Sylvicola pi?ius), a bird not bigger than our little Willow Wren. 

 But the powers of flight and endurance in small birds, in travers- 

 ing such vast tracts of ocean, is perhaps nowhere better exempli- 

 fied than in the occasional visit to the Bermudas of the Ruby- 

 throated Humming-bird {Trochilus colubris), 'Ber. Nat.,' p. 35. 



Before bringing the subject of migration, as noticed at 

 Bermuda, to a close, I must not omit to mention one or two 

 British birds which have found their way there ; one in particu- 

 lar, the common English Landrail or Corn-crake, which was 

 shot by Colonel Wedderburn in Pembroke Marsh, Bermuda, 

 on the eveningof the 25th of October 1874. This specimen, 

 at Colonel Wedderburn's request, I took to London, and pre- 

 sented from him to the late Mr Yarrell ; and some time after- 

 wards, on the sale of Mr Yarrell's effects, this same specimen, 

 which I at once recognised, was purchased by myself, and is 

 now in my collection. I do not pretend to say that this bird 

 crossed the whole width of the Atlantic, but, supposing it to 

 have worked its way to the American continent by Iceland and 

 Greenland,, and so on, from Cape Sable, or even Cape Hatteras, 



