Bird Life in a Suburban Parish 107 



through tlie tedious process of ehun<^e l)y moult of their entire 

 phniiaoe, l)ein_i>- thus (letaiued for one or two mouths from 

 followino- their offsprino- into winter quarters. This liokls 

 good for nearly all i-egular passengers in Heligoland, the sole 

 exception being the Cuckoo, which, leaving the care of 

 hatching its egg and rearing its young to kind-hearted foster- 

 parents, is free to go south whenever it j^leases. The most 

 striking instance of young birds preceding their parents by a 

 month or two is furnished by Starhngs {Sfuruus vulgaris) ; 

 young grey birds appearing here by hundreds and thousands at 

 the hitter end of .June, without in any case being accompanied 

 by a single okl one, the autumnal movement of the latter 

 commencing about the end of September, lasting through 

 October, and occasionally till late in November." 



These are the o])inions of an ornithologist who has had 

 far more opportunity for the observation of the mysteries 

 of bird migration than any other natm-alist. For fifty years 

 he systematically Jioted e\'ery arrival to the island of Hehgo- 

 land, where there are actually no resident birds to cause 

 confusion, and which has a list of feathered visitors greater 

 than the whole list of the birds of the British Islands, 

 A^early the whole popidation of Heligoland has ])een trained 

 by him to obser\e and catch the feathered visitors to this 

 island rock on their ])assage, and every important capture 

 has passed through his hands, and a record has been kept 

 of its age, plumage, sex, date, and the pre\'ailing wind and 

 weather. The late JMr. Seebohn disputed the accuracy of 

 Herr Gatke's list, alleging the difficulty of distinguishing 



