366 THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 



clear call-note during its flight. Neither do the birds appear in north 

 Germany or Holland in numbers corresponding to the enormous 

 numbers in which they become visible on this island. In France 

 they seem to be observed still more sparingly, and in Spain they 

 have, up to the present, not been met \s'ith at all. Notwithstanding, 

 according to the direction of the route by which they arrive here, 

 and in which they continue on their departure, the goal of their 

 journey — or, in other words, their winter quarters — must lie in the 

 two last-named countries, for the autunm migration of this species 

 illustrates in a most salient manner the view expressed in the 

 chapter on the Direction of the Migration Flight, viz. : ' That of the 

 birds whose general autumn movement proceeds in a westerly 

 direction, such individuals as have their breeding homes in lati- 

 tudes rather far north, do, under circumstances of necessity, make 

 temporary deviations to the south of their normal migration route.' 



This species must have displayed, even from its origin, a strong 

 inclination for a westerly autumn migration, for otherwise it could 

 never have got across into Asia, and finally to Lapland and Finmark. 

 A large number, if not indeed the majority, of all the individuals 

 breeding in northern Asia and the north of European Russia 

 persist, even at the present day, in this route of migration as far 

 as northern Scandinavia. Those observed in eastern Finmark are 

 seen to arrive from the east, whence they are called Russian Snow 

 Buntings. After reaching Finmark and Lapland they, in companj' 

 with the individuals breeding in those districts, turn southward, in 

 order to resume their former westerly course in latitudes somewhat 

 farther south, for it is only in this way that we can explain their 

 occurrence in such large and continually increasing nudtitudes 

 within the confines of Heligoland, coupled with the western ex- 

 tension of the breeding range of the species ; neither Lapland nor 

 Finmai'k, together with European Russia, is spacious enough to 

 produce such enormous quantities of individuals. 



That the deflection of their migration-route to the south com- 

 mences in upper Scandinavia may be concluded from the fact that 

 neither has the bird been met with by Saxby on the Shetland 

 Islands, nor is there any mention made of it in the British migi-ation 

 reports from the east coast of Scotland ; while, finally, this con- 

 clusion is confirmed by the reports of CoUett, according to which 

 the autumn migration of the Shore Lai-ks proceeds on the east of 

 Norway, from north to south through Sweden, and the bird is 

 hardly ever seen in the former country down to its southernmost 

 extremity. To the south of Sweden, however, the migration must 

 again assume a westerly direction, to account for the countless 

 flocks arriving in Heligoland, and to a less extent in England ; all 



