METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS 91 



that time was still a boy, expresses it : — ' One could not throw a stone 

 in any direction without it hitting numbers of tliese birds as long 

 as it was rolling along the ground.' During both of these months 

 the prevailing wind was east, and frequently south-east. The same 

 winds were experienced from the second half of December up to 

 the middle of the following Januarj'. 



Besides the above-named species, the Shore Lark appeared for 

 the first time here during the same autumn in very large flocks. 

 Vp to that time the bird was almost unknown on this island, 

 only three examples having been on obc occasion met with and 

 shot by those excellent authorities on anything ever seen here, 

 viz., the three brothers Aeuckens. Since the autumn of 1847, 

 however, the bird has appeared here with increasing frequency, 

 having at the same time steadily advanced its breeding stations 

 westwards from the extreme east of Asia, so that it has long 

 since become a settled breeding species in northern Scandinavia, 

 and will undoubtedly next extend its breeding area to the north 

 of Scotland. 



It has been hinted that this Lark may have probably occurred 

 in equally large numbers previous to that time, but have been over- 

 looked. This view, however, cannot be admitted in the case of 

 Heligoland, where at that time there were resident three such 

 observant and businesslike collectors as ' Old Koopmann,' Reymers, 

 and Oelrich, — the eldest of the three brothers Aeuckens, generally 

 called ' Old Oelk.' The last-named of the three, during the migra- 

 tion period of the Shore Lark, which, moreover, coincides with that 

 of the Snipe, searched every square foot of the i.sland at least twice 

 every day, and it is quite impossible that the striking call-note of 

 this restless bird, uttered both on the wing and when running about 

 on the groiuid, should have escaped his observation. In the course 

 of the last few decades the numbers of these birds which make their 

 appearance here have steadily increased to such a degree that they 

 are now to be counted every autumn by hundreds of thousands, 

 while thousands of them now also alight here again in the course 

 of their spring migi-ation, these last being undoubtedly individuals 

 which have passed the winter in England. 



The autumn of this same year also brought to this island 

 many Bullfinches, numerous AVaxwings, and of course a rather 

 large number of Richard's Pipit, with a fairly large quantity of 

 Coal Titmice, — all these species affording pi'oofs of an excep- 

 tionally strong migration from the far East. Besides, at the end 

 of October of the same year, Sabine's Gull was shot here, while the 

 Smew was observed very frequently. On the 10th of December 

 nine examples of Anser niveus were observed flying past the shore, 



