363 



finding the tediousnesse and paines in flying, he repents that ever he enterjwised 

 the voiage. To go backe again without company he is ashamed, and to come lag 

 behind he is as loth ; howbeit for that day he holdeth out so so, and never 

 goeth further ; for at the next resting place that they come unto, he faire leaveth 

 the company and staieth there, where lightly he meeteth with such another as 

 himselfe, who the yere before was left behind. And thus they do frorc time to 

 time, yere by yere " (3). The classical poets onlj' viewed bird migi-ation as 

 enabling them to lend a fresh charm to their verse, much as the Rhodian children 

 yearly welcomed the coming of the Swallow with a song. Virgil sjjeaks of the 

 birds bringing back summer to their sweet nests and dear offspring, and how 

 " vere rubenti Candida venit avis, longis invisa colubris " (4). 



Our own poets are equally vague and often equally beautiful. Thus 

 Thomson writes, speaking of the departure of the birds, where 



"The Atlantic surge 

 Pours in among the stormy Hebrides. 

 Who can recount what transmigrations there 

 Are annual made ? What nations come and go ? 

 And how the living clouds on clouds arise, 

 Infinite wings ! till all the plume-dark air 

 And rude resounding shore are one wild cry " (5). 



And Pope says : — 



" Who bid the Stnrk, Columbus-like, explore 

 Heavens not his own and worlds unknown before ? " 



—(Essay on Man, ep. 3), 



The first author to examine bird migration with a scientific eye was un- 

 doubtedly Gilbert White, just a century ago. He gives lists of summer and 

 winter migrants, with the times when the birds arrive or depart, shows that food 

 supplies are not the only cause of migration, and that birds cross usually at the 

 points which gives the shortest sea-voyage. But his sight was clouded by the 

 tenacity with which he clung to his belief in the hibernation of birds. Many 

 theories have since his time been enunciated by Weissman, Palm«^u, and others, 

 but the first requisite on which to found a safe judgment, abundance of varied 

 observations on migration, was wanting. The influence of Darwinism, too, has 

 rendered it almost necessary for his disciples to assume that not instinct, but 

 experience, not indeed the exjjerience of the individual but of the species, com- 

 pelled and guided migration (6). Ten years ago, therefore, it might bo said that 

 our scientific horizon with respect to migration was almost where it was in the 

 time of White, of Selborne ; that is, our knowledge of the subject had practically 

 not advanced for a century. 



II. A conviction had in 1879 entered the minds of many bird students that 

 without more accurate observations and abundance of them from all quarters of 

 Great Britain, no definite conclusions respecting the phenomena of migration 

 could be reached. A Committee was in that year appointed by the British 



(3) Pliny, " Natural History." Translated by Dr. Philemon Holland (London, 1634). 



(4). Virg., Georg. II., 319. 



(5). Autumn, 862. 



(6). Seeapaperon "Bird Migration," by Weissman in iheConietiiporary Review, Feb., 1879 



