1897- THE MIGRATION OF BRITISH BIRDS. 253 



greater or less degree its progress, or even blow birds out of their 

 course." The fact that easterly and south-easterly winds prevail during 

 the great autumnal migratory movements is shown to be the direct 

 result of the type of weather favourable to such movements, and there 

 appears to be no reason, other things being equal, why W,, N.W., 

 and S.W. winds, if not too strong, should not be in every way suitable 

 for migratory purposes, except that these winds indicate cyclonic 

 disturbances in North-Western Europe, which are fatal to migration 

 between that region and the British Isles. 



It has been pointed out that occasionally the migrating birds pass 

 into gales en route, often with disastrous consequences.^ Should such 

 disturbances continue even the most hardy birds suffer severely. It 

 has again and again happened that the tide-line has been thickly 

 strewn with guillemots, razor-bills, and puffins ; little auks have been 

 known to stray even into the streets of inland towns, flocks of skuas 

 have been met with far from the coast, and even the ocean-loving 

 fulmar has been driven shoreward in numbers. To this cause we owe 

 not only the unusual spectacle of storm-petrels fiying inland, but also 

 the record of some of the rarest members of this remarkable family, 

 which probably spend their whole existence as ocean wanderers, with 

 the single exception of a brief visit to the shore at the period of repro- 

 duction. If these dire effects are produced on birds possessed of 

 such marvellous powers of flight and protracted endurance, what must 

 be the fate of the delicate summer-migrants when buffetted by the 

 stormy winds in mid-sea ! 



The above are some of the deductions derived from a careful 

 study of the voluminous data amassed by the British Association 

 Committee on Migration, and it is most satisfactory to learn that Mr. 

 Clarke does not consider he has by any means exhausted the material 

 at his command, and is even now engaged in working out the details 

 for each species. Ornithologists must thoroughly endorse the hope of 

 the Committee that he will receive some encouragement to continue 

 the first really scientific attempt to work out the phenomena attending 



the migration of birds. 



Thomas Southwell, 

 Norwich. 



^ In the Norwich Mercury for November 11, 1786, it is stated that the master of 

 a Newcastle collier, being within a few leagues of Easton Ness, on the coast of Suffolk, 

 sailed through water that appeared unusually black, and on inspection it was found 

 to be occasioned by a vast number of drowned birds, and those birds woodcocks. 



