290 STUDIES IN BIRD-MIGRATION 



the first signs of dawn, when the movement waned. At 

 daybreak, all, save a few Starlings resting in a dazed con- 

 dition in the recesses of the windows, had passed away. 



A notable and important feature of this movement 

 was the continual arrival, down to almost its very close, 

 of fresh emigrants, not only of the kinds early noted, 

 but of other species which had not previously partici- 

 pated in it ; for instance, the Meadow- Pipit did not 

 appear upon the scene until as late as 4,50 a.m. This 

 continuous succession of arrivals indicated, I think, that 

 some of the birds had come from localities comparatively 

 near at hand on the mainland, while others had travelled 

 from afar ere they reached the Eddystone on their flight 

 southwards. The presence of the Redwing and the 

 Fieldfare showed that the wayfarers were not all 

 natives of Britain ; and it is possible that others among 

 the migrants, perhaps the majority of them, may also 

 have been drawn from sources beyond the limits of the 

 British Isles. In this connection it may be stated that 

 all the Starlings captured at the lantern (on this and 

 other occasions) belonged to a race having a purple 

 head and green ear-coverts, which is said to be of Con- 

 tinental origin. Regarding these Starlings, it is a fact, 

 not perhaps without significance, that the only other 

 specimens I have seen of this form were obtained 

 at the Spurn Head lighthouse and at Brighton in the 

 autumn, and were doubtless immigrants. 



Throughout the movement, and especially when it 

 was at its height in the earliest hours of the morning, 

 the scene presented was singular in the extreme and 

 beyond my powers of word-painting. Hosts of glitter- 

 ing objects, birds resplendent, as it were, in burnished 

 gold, were fluttering in, or crossing at all angles, the 



