76 STUDIES IN BIRD-MIGRATION 



contingent which has reached the islands by way of the 

 west coast routes, to be presently treated of. 



There are a number of famous stations for witness- 

 ing these interesting passage movements along the east 

 coast of Britain. Among others, Breydon, Wells, and 

 other places on the Norfolk coast ; the shores of the 

 Wash and Humber ; Spurn Head, the southern limit of 

 the Yorkshire coast ; the Fame Islands ; the Isle of 

 May, and the Firths of Forth and Tay ; the Montrose 

 Basin, and the numerous isles of the Orkney and 

 Shetland groups. 



The points at which the birds depart in the 

 spring and arrive in the autumn, on our eastern shores, 

 are well worth attention, and are best ascertained by a 

 study of the movements in autumn, when the migrants 

 are most in evidence. It has already been stated that 

 these points lie north of the Humber, and between that 

 estuary and the Island of Unst, the northernmost limit 

 of the British area. We are able to determine, with 

 some degree of precision, the southern limit — the one 

 which alone presents difficulties — of these passages 

 across the North Sea. No section of the British coast 

 is so abundantly equipped with light-stations as that 

 which lies between the Humber and the Straits of 

 Dover. Here, in addition to our average number of 

 lighthouses, there is a fleet of lightships, stationed at 

 varying distances off the coast, and most favour- 

 ably situated for recording these movements between 

 Northern Europe and the eastern shores of Britain. 

 These lightships furnished the British Association 

 Committee on Bird-Migration with carefully kept records 

 for a number of years. These clearly indicate that the 

 great autumn movements of northern species are not 



