MIGRATION IN THE BRITISH I STANDS. 241 



frequent may be witnessed from scores of stations 

 in the British Islands hkewise. In many cases 

 Migration is even more marked on our eastern 

 coasts than on Hehgoland. This is only just what 

 we ought to expect. Had Heligoland retained its 

 unique character as a Migration Station, much of the 

 mystery in Avian Season Flight that is now made 

 plain would only have been intensified. Many of 

 these simple and obviously truthful British Migra- 

 tion Reports read like romance, and equal anything 

 that has come from the famous bird rock at the 

 mouth of the Elbe. Birds striking the lights ; 

 birds in countless hosts, drifting by in feathery tides ; 

 birds in hundreds exhausted and falling into the 

 sea to perish, or allowing themselves to be taken by 

 the hand ; birds passing for days together, literally 

 square miles of them ; birds by day and birds by 

 night, flying in regular steady waves or in bewilder- 

 ing rushes ; birds following the rays of revolving 

 lamps, or hurhng themselves against the dazzling 

 beacons to die, or settling in crow^ds to rest ! Such 

 are the facts observed by the light-keeper on his 

 lonely vigil, and forming a chapter in the life 

 history of our feathered friends of profound, intense, 

 and marvellous interest ! When we bear in mind 

 that the records of Heligoland have been religiously 

 kept by a distinguished naturalist for half a century, 

 and that our reports are made almost in every case 

 by untrained and unscientific observers, the possi- 

 bilities of future research seem limitless. 



To deal fully with the subject of migration in 



