The Scottish Naturalist, 287 



the haughs and lower-lying fields in Athole and other Highland 

 districts, the well-known form of the Sea Piot, with its shrill 

 piping note, may be seen, like the Rook, following the plough, 

 and grubbing for worms. 



Accessory migration consists of such as reinforce our seden- 

 tary birds, and even some of those that are of pa?'tial migration, 

 arriving every autumn in large numbers from the Continent. 

 Thus we have fresh levies every year of Linnets, Redpoles, 

 Siskins, Goldcrests, Robins, Larks, Blackbirds, and Thrushes, 

 Hawks, Owls, Woodcocks, Snipe, and a host of others, besides 

 wildfowl innumerable. Some of these accessory migrants appear 

 in such wonderful masses as to create profound astonishment ; 

 and Mr Gray mentions an instance in that of the Lark, which 

 appeared some years ago in such prodigious numbers near Gir- 

 van, that on rising into the air they formed a dark cloud of the 

 most singular appearance ; and, on one occasion, in the confusion 

 of their movements, the whole body crossed one of the public 

 roads, by the side of which there were several lines of telegraph 

 wires, but the mass of birds was so compact that none of 

 those in a line with the wires escaped destruction. As soon as 

 the flock was past dozens were picked up dead or mutilated, 

 portions of wings torn from the living bird being even found ad- 

 hering to the wires. Mr Cordeaux also bears witness to extra- 

 ordinary flights of Larks arriving on the coast in the Humber 

 district ; and the late Dr Saxby relates that flocks return in large 

 numbers of several hundreds through Shetland, on their way 

 north, in the month of March. The little Gold Crest also reaches 

 our shores in large flocks every year, about the middle of Octo- 

 ber. Both at the Spurn and Flamborough Head they are fre- 

 quently found dead beneath the lighthouses, having dashed 

 bewildered against the glass lanterns on their migration ; and 

 Mr Cordeaux, who has paid much attention to our migratory 

 birds, is of opinion that these autumn flights again leave our 

 shores in the spring, but that the journey is then performed in 

 little companies, and that they thus escape observation. In this 

 neighbourhood,^ in the large fir and spruce woods about Scone, 

 I have, in the late autumn and early winter, frequently observed 

 immense quantities of Goldcrests, I may say in hundreds, flitting 

 from tree to tree, evidently part of some of these great autumnal 

 flights. The Woodcock, too, which is generally preceded by 

 this little bird, from which on some parts of the coast it bears 



1 Perth. 



