"BRITISH BIRDS" MARKING SCHEME. 159 



really valuable results can be arrived at. The danger of 

 drawing conclusions from too slender a basis of fact must 

 be studiously avoided. So far as migrational movements 

 are concerned, it is tempting to arrange " routes " on the 

 basis of a comparatively few " recoveries," but because 

 some individuals of a species take one route, it must 

 not be inferred that all birds of that species go the same 

 way, or even migrate at all. This much anyway we 

 have already proved, and it would be fair to say that of 

 certain birds we have now got just enough results to show 

 how dangerous it would be to draw conclusions from them ! 



Having said this much in warning, I shall not be 

 misconstrued if I point to a few results which are interest- 

 ing in themselves, and may prove, in conjunction with 

 others, to be valuable. 



Four Blackbirds " ringed " in Ayrshire in June, July, 

 and August, 1909, were found in the same place, two in 

 July and August, 1910, and two in June and July, 1911. 

 Two " ringed " in Berkshire in July, 1910, were found 

 in the same place in December, 1910, and March, 1911, 

 respectively. But another "ringed" near Glasgow in 

 June, 1910, was found in Pembrokeshire in January, 1911. 



Of Starlings caught in his useful cage-trap, Mr. Joy 

 has already published many interesting records, showing 

 that a number marked in January in Berkshire stayed 

 in the same place through the following March to October, 

 yet one marked in February travelled to Kent in the 

 same month. Two Starlings marked in September in 

 Lincolnshire were found in December in Pembrokeshire 

 and Yorkshire, while another marked in October, was 

 found in the following March in the original place. 



A Meadow-Pipit marked in Yorkshire in June, 1910, 

 was found near the same place in May, 1911. Two 

 others marked in Yorkshire in May and July, 1911, have 

 been found in south-west France, in September and 

 October. 



Three Mallards marked in Norfolk in June, 1909, were 

 found in the same place in November, 1909, another 



