Ornithology of the Var <Sfc. 



365 



It may be worth comparing a few of the above-mentioned 

 dates of arrival with those noted in Algeria; Corsica (by 

 Mr. Whitehead in 1883) ; and Norfolk (by the Rev. M. C. 

 Bird). 



On looking over these dates of arrival, and also those which 

 I took down in Egypt in 1875, the principal thing which strikes 

 me is the rapidity with which the birds, having once started, 

 pursue their journey. The Turtle-Dove {Turtur communis), 

 for instance, is in Northern Egypt on April 2nd, in Algeria 

 on the nth, in Corsica on the 16th, in the Var on May 2nd, 

 in England on May 4th, and a little later in the Shetland 

 Islands, which may be considered beyond its ordinary limit. 



The average time which the spring passage of any particular 

 species lasts is probably three weeks — that is to say, indi- 

 viduals keep on coming to the Var in succession for that 

 period, provided the weather be normal ; the first arrivals 

 having passed on and reached their journey's end before 

 the latest comers appear. A more favourable place for the 

 study of migration than the North-west Mediterranean there 

 could not be, and wei-e there a Gatke on one of the rocky 

 little islands off the coast of the South of France he would 

 surely iiave much to tell us. 



I crossed the Mediterranean twice in January and twice 

 in the summer and saw nothing ; but there is hardly any 

 ornithologist who has been afloat at the periods of migration 



