191 7- Moffat — Some Migrant Noks. 131 



SO.ME MIGRANT NOTES. 



BY C. B. MOFFAT, B.A., M.R.I. A. 



The notes contributed by Mr. Burkitt {supra, p. 103) 

 deserve careful study, and will be welcomed by all who 

 take a genuine interest in the subject of migration. 



The phenological department of the Royal Meteorological 

 Society is, 1 think, clearly justified in adding a migrant 

 table to its returns ; for the very regularity on which Mr. 

 Burkitt lays stress, and which his well-kept records go so 

 far to prove, must lend the greater interest to those occas- 

 ional departures from it which undoubtedly occur, and to 

 the ciuestion how far such irree^ularities may be due to the 

 meteorological conditions prevailing at the time. 



There have been a few years in which it would be almost 

 impossible to dispute the existence of some connection 

 between the early or late arrival of the migrants and the 

 forward or backward condition of the season's general 

 advance. The extreme cases in my recollection are the 

 wonderfully warm and forward spring of 1893 and the 

 sadly inclem.ent one of 1917. For the former of these years — 

 during which I was debarred by some exceptionally pressing 

 duties from field observations on any regular scale — I must 

 refer all doubtfully-disposed readers to the notes from 

 various sources published in the Irish Naturalist (vol. ii., 

 pp. 150, 177, 201, etc.) ; I well remember my own surprise, 

 on taking a walk for a short distance outside Dublin on 

 April 23rd, when I heard Whitethroats and Sedge- Warblers 

 singing numerously on every side — a state of things that in 

 ordinary years would not exist sooner than, at best, the 

 8th or loth of May. In 1917 the influence of the cold 

 season — aggravated, until the middle of April, by strong 

 and unfavourable winds — affected, I must admit, only the 

 " earlier batch " of the migrants ; but how badly it spoiled 

 the punctuality records of these, let the cases of the Chiff- 

 chaff and Willow- Wren declare. 



Of the Chiffchaff 's arrival at Ballyhyland in former years 

 I have 28 dates, and of these 17 are within four days, and 



