98 The Irish Xatnralist. Juno 



breeding quarters, and making the air ring with their 

 proudest notes of courtship, challenge, and jubilation. 



In the case of the Sky-lark, I think there can be no 

 difficulty about accepting the conclusion that the birds 

 which were heard singing so numerously during the last 

 week of February were returned migrants. The spring 

 migration of this species is known to be on a large scale, 

 and the light-house data go to show that February is 

 probably the month in which it reaches its maximum. 

 The influx this year must have been very happily timed 

 to account for the great numbers seen and heard before 

 the end of the month. From February 20th to 28th we 

 had weather that seemed really favourable to migration ; 

 it was then that the bulk of our Redwings left us, and 

 the Song-Thrush and Blackbird (some of both species 

 being, doubtless, new immigrants) took to singing. From 

 the end of February to the middle of April we had no 

 equally favourable week, and the return of many of our 

 other partial migrants would seem to have been largely 

 prevented. 



The Woodcock and Snipe, which turned up in force 

 about the same time as the Sky-lark, present a more thorny 

 problem, since there is no proof of a regular spring influx 

 of either of these birds into Ireland, or even into Great 

 Britain. But Mr. Barrington has shown {Migration of 

 Birds, pp. 209-10) that some of the light-house evidence 

 points to such an immigration, and as these birds are so 

 little addicted, even in autumn, to striking the lanterns, 

 absence of fuller proof is not conclusive to the contrar3^ 

 I believe the facts here adduced will go some way towards 

 strengthening Mr. Barrington's suggestion that both the 

 Woodcock and Snipe are summer as well as winter visitants. 

 The birds that were watched performing their spring 

 evolutions during the last week of February, after this 

 exceptionally cruel winter, were, at any rate, in much 

 better physical condition than one would have expected 

 them to show had they passed the severe weeks from 

 January 25th to February 14th in any part of Ireland. 



Ballyhyland, Co. Wexford. 



