ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM A SOUTH LONDON SUBURB. 
wind at the time of the movement. Should a W. or N.W. 
wind blow in the first few days of October, and keep in that 
quarter, a daily passage in a direction W. or W. by N. may 
be witnessed through nearly the whole month; if, however, E. 
or S.E. winds occur, the movement will be scarcely, if at all, 
noticeable. 
On a favourable occasion flock after flock, containing half 
a dozen to fifty or more birds, will pass in an almost continuous 
stream for hours—.e., from 8 a.m. to noon or thereabouts. One 
of the most remarkable of these passages occurred in 1902, 
when the first flock passed over on the 7th October, and others 
almost daily until the 5th of November — exactly a month; 
during this time many thousands must have passed before my 
eyes—probably only a tithe of those travelling when I was 
unable to watch their progress. In that year the heaviest 
“rushes” were between the 2Ist and 20th, and throughout this 
time the wind was chiefly W. by N. 
Exactly the contrary took place in 1889, when there was 
only one day of marked migration, and in 1908, when only 
two days showed any passage; but throughout the Octobers 
of those years the prevalent wind was E. or S.E. 
I imagine that the absence of visible migration during 
these unfavourable winds is due to the fact that the birds 
pass over at a great height—in fact, out of sight—in a region 
where they find a suitable half-facing wind. In support of 
this theory I would say that on several occasions it has hap- 
pened that my attention has been called to the passing of these 
birds by their faint call note, and after careful scrutiny I have 
‘discovered them so high overhead as to be mere specks in the 
blue; in such cases the direction of the wind below was un- 
favourable, whilst higher up was a contrary current that suited. 
This Chaffinch migration is the most regular and evident 
than that of the other foreign visitors which pass over the dis- 
trict, but all the species that pass over us in autumn are gener- 
ally — indeed, almost only—seen when a W. or N.W. wind 
prevails. This fact will be more fully dealt with in the notes 
on migration, further on. 
HAWFINCH. 
Although this always seems to be rather a scarce bird, it 
is more generally distributed than supposed, and for this there 
are several reasons. In the first place, it is particularly shy ; 
secondly, its note—a short “tick ”—Jis neither loud nor re- 
markable, nor is the song attractive enough to arrest attention. 
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