1 897-1 Bird Migration. 109 



Nor do the direct north-and-south migrants fare better. The Red- 

 spotted Bluethroat, for instance, to which Herr Gatke assigns this route, 

 is shown by Mr. Whitlock to be on such a hypothesis strangely out of 

 place in its annual visits to Heligoland, having no ascertained winter 

 home west of Egypt ; while with reference to the Red-throated Pipit 

 {Anthus cervinus), Herr Gatke's statement that it " adheres to a most 

 rigid southerly course " is pertinently contrasted with a passage in 

 Collett's " Bird Life in Arctic Norway," stating as distinctly that in 

 spring it follows " the eastern route across Russia and the Baltic 

 provinces." At the same time it must be pointed out that our author 

 is no friend to " eastward migration " on any extensive scale, and, at the 

 commencement of the chapter under review, seems to regard the east- 

 and-west trend of the bird-flights as Herr Gatke's principal heresy, 

 to the refutation of which the shattering of the "broad front" is 

 merely subsidiarj-. It is, however, against the "broad front" and the 

 " undeviating line " that all his heavy array of facts is really marshalled, 

 and the case for at least a considerable east-and-west migration is left, 

 after all, practically unshaken. Mr. "Whitlock objects, too (p. 54), to the 

 doctrine that birds follow a more direct course in spring than in 

 autumn, as " quite unsupported by any positive evidence." It certainly 

 seems at variance with Herr Gatke's rigid east-and-west theory. But 

 that some curious differences between spring and autumn routes exist 

 can be proved by one instance — that of the Nightingale— a bird which 

 we in Ireland have special reason to know seldom straggles accidentally 

 from its course, and which at Heligoland is a well-known visitor in 

 spring, yet has never been taken in autumn. The converse case, there- 

 fore, of a bird of passage common in autumn but scarce in spring, does 

 not need (although it may fall in with) Mr. Whitlock's supposition of 

 wholesale loss of life in the interval. 



In his chapter on " Velocity of the Migration Flight" Mr. Whitlock 

 quotes (p. 94) a comical result of one of Herr Gatke's high estimates. 

 The speed of the Hooded Crow, on migration, is set down as 108 miles 

 an hour. Few of us would have fancied it of our familiar " Scald-crow " ; 

 but what follows .'' Scald-crows, as we know, are little incommoded by 

 weather; but it seems the migrating bird, moving 108 miles an hour, 

 objects to have its feathers ruffled by wind "blowing through its 

 plumage obliquely from behind'' So — says Herr Gatke — when flying 

 westward before a strong south-east wind, it turns its face southward, 

 and in this attitude maintains its westward flight with the same velocity 

 as under normal conditions. Herr Gatke does not, of course, mean his 

 readers to imagine a wind blowing at the terrific pace of 108 miles an 

 hour (z.^., 158 feet a second !) ; but, as Mr. Whitlock points out, no 

 slower breeze than this would ruffle the rear-feathers of a bird flying at 

 that particular rate ; indeed, in flying sideways, the Crow would to some 

 extent be creating the very inconvenience he is represented as seeking 

 to avoid. It is certainly to be regretted that the pretty little Bluethroat, 

 whose speed is set down as iSo miles an hour, travels only by tiight, and 

 cah never be seen in the performance of its wonderful exploit. 



C. B. M. 



