1912. Patten. — Rock Pipits on Migration. 165 



this bird's migrations in a few lines. He says : "If this 

 species migrates at all, we have little or no evidence of it 

 from the hght -stations. In the second week of October, 

 1886, two specimens were forwarded which had struck the 

 lanterns on Rathhn O'Birne and Eagle Island West, off 

 the north-west coast. These may have been performing a 

 short migration southward, but no other such instances 

 are known to have occurred, the Rock-Pipits received from 

 light -stations having generally been either shot or sent 

 without data." Now, from what I have already said in 

 regard to the tendency of the Rock-Pipit to travel by day 

 and thereby to avoid the lantern, I cannot see that the value 

 of its migration records should in any way be minimised 

 on the grounds that records have been made, and specimens 

 collected at light -stations mainly in the daytime at sites 

 other than the lantern, always provided that the 

 light -station is such that it could not form a per- 

 manent or even seasonal natural habitat where nesting 

 could be accomplished. An example of this kind of light - 

 station is found in the Tuskar Rock, where, as I have 

 mentioned in a previous article on " Wrens on Migration 

 observed at the Tuskar Rock and Lighthouse,"^ the rock 

 at high water may become almost wave-swept, fresh water 

 is unavailable, and food is so scarce that it could not long 

 sustain life. On the other hand, it is obvious to those of us 

 cognisant with the mode of life of the Rock-Pipit, that its 

 migratory movements require very careful scrutiny. For 

 this littoral passerine species exhibits a strong predilection 

 for rocky coasts whose nature closely simulates the ground of 

 which the small barren wave-swept island-rocks are composed. 

 Indeed, by shghtly enlarging such a site, raising it beyond 

 the destructive powers of the waves, and here and there 

 carpeting it with scant soil and marine herbage, this hardy 

 species would be sufficientty provided with accommodation 

 to take up its abode and breed. Hence it is that its occur- 

 rences (apart from the question of its striking the lantern, 

 of which we have no records) on the Tearaght, on Arran- 

 more. Samphire Island, Innistrahull, and other such light- 



' Irish Naturalist, vol. xxi., 19 12, p. 126. 



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