2o4 Mr. W. Eagle Clarke—.^ Month 



this as it may^ it is a fact, not, perhaps, without significance, 

 that the only specimens I have seen of this form elsewhere 

 were obtained at the Spurn Head Lighthouse 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 adequate 

 description. Resplendent, as it were, in burnished gold, 

 hosts of birds were fluttering in, or crossing at all angles, 

 the brilliant revolving beams of light ; those which simply 

 traversed the rays were illumined for a moment only, and 

 became mere spectres on passing into the gloom. The 

 migrants which winged their way uj) the beams — and they 

 were many — resembled balls or streaks of approaching light, 

 and they either struck the lantern or, being less entranced, 

 passed out of the rays ere the fatal goal was reached. Of 

 those striking some fell like stones from their violent contact 

 with the glass, while others beat violently against the windows 

 in their wild efforts to reach the focal point of the all-fascinating 

 light. Many of those that freed themselves from the dazzling 

 streams came in sharp contact with the copper dome of the 

 lantern, making it resound again, and then fell like flashes 

 into the surf below, followed slowly by a shower of feathers 

 resembling a miniature storm of golden flakes. Finally, 

 above and below the madding crowd in the illumined zone, 

 great numbers of the emigrants flitted around in dim con- 

 fusion, and in almost weird contrast with the brilliant 

 multitudes gyrating in the adjacent vistas of light. The 

 accompanying babel of tongues was also a striking feature. 

 These were not cries of gratification, but of surprise and 

 alarm ; and they varied from the loud rattling notes of the 

 Blackbird and the harsh angry " chnrr " of the Mistle- 

 Thrush to the faint and dainty twitter of the Goldcrest. 

 Some Skylarks every now and then, under the impulse of 

 excitement no doubt, broke out into a few notes of song. 

 Not a few strange voices were heard, some probably uttered 

 by species with whose ordinary notes one was quite familiar; 

 but migrants, especially Waders, have a travel-talk which is, 



