79 



BIRD-LIFE ON THE MOORS IN SEPTEMBER. 



In the last chapter, I noticed the main features of moorland 

 ornithology during August. Briefly summed up, that month 

 may be said to witness the concluding stages of the with- 

 drawal of most of those species which have spent the spring 

 and summer on the hills, and the commencement of the 

 " through transit " of others of similar kinds, which have 

 been reared a little further north, in Scotland and the outly- 

 ing islands. But of the great wave of migration from foreign 

 lands which sets upon our coasts in August, little or no sign 

 is visible upon the inland moors. Far different is the case 

 upon the sea-coast. There, on the great tidal estuaries and 

 mud-flats, the phenomenon is patent enough to the most 

 casual observer. The dreary wastes of ooze and sand, which 

 in June and July lay comparatively lifeless and uninteresting, 

 by mid-August teem with countless hosts of graceful crea- 

 tures — birds which but ten days or a fortnight previously, 

 had been at home among the glacier-valleys of Spitzbergen, 

 or Novaya Zemlya, or merrily piping amidst the desolation of 

 the Siberian ^;/«r?ra. But of this great ornithic movement, 

 the only indications I was able to record on the moors, were 

 stray occurrences of Whimbrels, and of the Arctic Skua. 



During September and October, we have arrivals of many 

 of the foreign migrants, the variety of which increases as the 

 season advances, and their consecutive appearances add a 

 constant source of interest to shooting days in autumn. At 

 the same time, I should add that the heather at all seasons 

 compares unfavourably with salt-water in this respect. 



Of the strictly foreign-going birds, the earliest arrival on 

 the fells is usually the Jacksnipe. They are hardly due before 

 October, but in the course of some twenty seasons' shooting, 



