DIRECTION OF THE MIGRATION FLIGHT 39 



those breeding birds which, having lost their mates, happen to 

 straggle to Heligoland from Greece and Asia Minor during the 

 earlier summer months. This phenomenon will be treated more 

 fully in the chapter on exceptional phenomena attending migration. 



We cannot tlismiss this subject of the great southerly move- 

 ment of the autumn migration without referring to the truly enor- 

 mous and wonderful stretches of road which some species are in 

 the habit of covering during this movement. In this respect 

 two species of Sandpipers — the Curlew Sandpiper and the Knot 

 — are unsurpassed by any other. Up to the present we are 

 unacquainted with the eggs of either species, though young in 

 down of the Knot were brought home by Captain Feilden from 

 Grinnell-Land in 82° N. latitude. The nesting-places of the Curlew 

 Sandpiper, however, have not yet been reached, and can only exist 

 in the islands or tracts of land situate within the Polar basin. For 

 further details on this head the reader is referred to the separate 

 descriptions of these species in the third part of this book. As 

 these birds have been met with in the winter in New Zealand, 

 they must have performed a southern flight equal to nearly half 

 the circumference of the globe. 



Besides the two great migi'ation movements hitherto discussed — 

 the one proceeding in a westerly, the other in a southerly direction 

 — we are met with another most surprising phenomenon, viz., that 

 more or less considerable numbers of individuals of many species 

 whose normal autumn migration belongs to the latter (N.-S.) 

 tj'pe, turn to the west on quitting their nesting stations, and migrate 

 to western Europe instead of southern Asia. This tendency is 

 by no means peculiar to those species whose breeding range extends 

 to western Asia or north-eastern Europe, as is proved by the 

 cases of the Siberian Chift'chatt", the Yellow-breasted Bunting, and 

 the Terek Sandpiper. On the contrary, all our experience goes to 

 show that it is more especially manifested by species whose 

 breeding homes are farthest removed from Europe, as, for instance, 

 in the case of the Yellow-browed Warbler, which breeds on the 

 further side of the Jenesei ; and still more so in that of the Richard's 

 Pipit, whose breeding stations lie on the farther side of Lake 

 Baikal. IVIoreover, this tendency is generally confined to particular 

 species only of a genus, being entirely absent in others of the same 

 genus. In proof thereof we may cite the case of the Yellow- 

 breasted Bunting and the Little Bunting — two species breeding in 

 the north-east of European Russia — whose nests may bo found 

 almost side by side. Of these the former has only been seen in 

 Heligoland on three occasions within more than fifty years, and 

 with the exception of an example met with at Genoa, has never 



