REVIEW5 



Ueport on the Immigrations of Summer Residents in the Spring 

 of 1906, bv the Committee appointed by the British Ornitho- 

 logists' Club. (Forming Vol. XX., Bull. B.O.C. Edited by 

 W. E. Ogilvie-Grant.) 34 Maps. Witherby & Co. 6s. 



In December, 1904, the British Ornithologists' Club appointed 

 a Committee to enquire into the movements of the common 

 migrants in so far as concerned England and Wales. In 1906 

 this Committee issued its first Report, in which the movements 

 of twenty-nine strictly migratory species were traced from the 

 time of their arrival on our shores in the Spring of 1905 until 

 they settled down to breed. The present is the second Report 

 of this Committee, and it deals with the movements of the same 

 species, and five additional ones in the Spring of 1906. 



No comparison is made between the results obtained in 1906 

 and 1905, and, although the Committee are, no doubt, perfectly 

 right in refusing to generalize on so comparatively slender a 

 basis as the records obtained in two years only, nevertheless a 

 comparative statement of the facts recorded in the two years 

 would have been a very great gain, and need not have involved 

 any expression of opinion. 



For instance, the areas of arrival of most of the species seem 

 to have been the same in both years. Thus we now have 

 evidence that the Glarden Warbler, Wood VV^arbler and Landrail 

 have arrived solely on the western half of the south coast, and 

 the Whinchat, Common and Lesser Whitethroat, Red-backed 

 Shrike, Wryneck and Turtle Dove solely on the eastern half and 

 south-eastern coi'ner, while most of the other species arrive 

 along the whole south coast. The summary of the arrival areas 

 (page 12) is somewhat carelessly made up ; the Landrail, for 

 instance, is stated on page 165 to have arrived entirely on the 

 westei-n half of the south coast, but is placed in the summary 

 as arriving along the whole south coast. 



Points of arrival are often very difficult to ascertain, and birds 

 may very easily be missed by observers on the coast. This fact 

 does not seem to have been taken into account sufficiently in the 

 present report for, although it is recognised that Swifts and 

 House-Martins which appeared in South Wales had probably 

 passed over Devon without being seen, yet it is argued, on 

 apparently very slender evidence, that House-Martins appearing 

 in Sussex and Kent had made their way thither from Dorset 

 and Hampshire. 



Another point to which attention should be directed, as it 

 may indicate inaccurate observation, is that apparent movements 



