NOTES • 21 



NOTES. 



Enormous Rush of Redwings at Skerryvore Lantern. — 



The migration of Redwings which took place almost every night 

 from the 17th to the 25th October at the Skerryvore lantern 

 interested me so much that I venture to write a note on the 

 subject. What interested me most was the terrible number of 

 birds killed by striking the lantern. The largest number of dead 

 for one night was 131, counted on the morning of 22nd October; 

 these were gathered on the balcony, the narrow strip of grating 

 surrounding the lantern, and the gutter round the base of the dome. 

 Undoubtedly, the enormous majority of those killed fell into the 

 sea. We saw the dead birds drifting away to leeward in a steady 

 stream, on which many seagulls fed. We watched this, morning 

 after morning ; it was really awful. The three of us here at the time 

 were agreed that on some nights not one minute of the whole night 

 passed without at least one bird striking fatally, and at times that 

 number was greatly exceeded. A fact that particularly struck us 

 was that the majority of the birds were killed by striking the dome. 

 There were a great many birds coming, but I have over and over again 

 seen vastly more in the rays of the lantern of the Isle of May, 

 without there being more than half a dozen birds killed. If it were 

 that the light had the effect of dazzling the birds, and that they 

 struck blindly, the May light should be more fatal than this one, as 

 it is much more powerful and has four flashes to one here, every 

 twenty seconds. From the 17th to the morning of the 23rd this 

 slaughter continued, and on the night of the 23rd the birds arrived as 

 usual, but on the following morning we only found one dead Redwing 

 on the balcony. The weather was the same as on the former nights, 

 viz., south-east wind, cloudy sky with light haze, the only difference 

 being that the wind was light, instead of fresh. This inclines me 

 to think that the strength of wind may have something to do with 

 the heaviness of the death-roll. Possibly when a strong wind is 

 blowing, birds coming under the influence of the light only become 

 aware of their danger when it is too late for them to arrest their 

 rapid flight, and in consequence many more are killed than when the 

 wind is light. — Robert Wilson, Skerryvore Lighthouse. 



Curlew ringed in Finland and recovered in Lew^is. — Dur- 

 ing a recent visit to the Butt of Lewis, I had most obligingly sent to 

 me on the 3rd of October, by Mr John Morrison of Galson, a foot of 

 a Curlew with a ring on it which had been found by a crofter on a 

 moor about four miles away. The ring bore the endorsement "J. A. 



