THE SOUTHWARD FLIGHT 275 



Sweden, like the nightingale or swallow in England. Our 

 birds of double passage, like the green sandpiper, are summer 

 and winter migrants in other parts of the world. The wood- 

 cock in Great Britain is chiefly a winter visitor, but to a small 

 (though increasing) extent a resident species. In Austria 

 it is a bird of double passage, though much commoner in 

 autumn than in spring. In central Germany the robin is 

 chiefly a summer migrant, and only occasionally a resident. 

 Such examples show how hard it is to get a true understand- 

 ing of the habits of birds if we only consider their habits in 

 our own islands, from our local point of view. We should 

 always think of them as essentially migratory creatures; 

 though there are more or less definite exceptions. The 

 Dartford warbler and the Cornish chough are among the 

 more resident British species ; and their scarcity and very 

 local distribution show how unprofitable it often is for a 

 species to become too much wedded to one locality. The 

 case of the extinct great auk is another famous instance in 

 point. Even such common resident species as thrushes and 

 robins would fare ill if the majority of their individual 

 members were really resident. Probably not one in fifty 

 of the song-thrushes which breed in England find safe 

 winter quarters within a mile of their nesting-place ; and the 

 rest are migrants. Often on an October morning we may 

 see the lawn harbour, for a short rest, one or two yellow 

 wagtails, or a larger party of pied wagtails, running with 

 equal grace and activity over the dewy grass. According 

 to the traditional distinction framed from a local British 

 standpoint, the yellow wagtail is a summer migrant, and the 

 pied one a resident. But most pied wagtails migrate, and 

 both the pied and the yellow that alight on the lawn in this 

 way are migrants on autumn passage from England. 



