ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM A SOUTH LONDON SUBURB. 
hand, a wind behind the travellers would disarrange their 
feathers,—very unpleasantly so in the soft-plumaged species— 
and in the case of a strong breeze would tend to chill and tire 
them. 
My experience then, mainly in the E. and S.E. counties, 
has been as follows, viz., that the only vzszble and sustained 
migration 72 numbers is invariably in an N.W., W., or S.W. 
direction, almost directly against the wind—even when such 
approaches a stiff breeze; the birds in their progress meeting 
the wind on the right or left breast. Thus: 
Wind N. +—Course N.N.W. 
» NW , £W.N.W. 
» WW. — , W.N.W. or W.S.W. 
Se N= 25 Sip VES 
By the compass the most favoured course would be expressed 
—W. by N. Moreover the advance of these flocks is not 
of a laboured or hesitating character, but straight, steady, and 
at a uniform pace; the travellers having seemingly a known 
goal before them, in reaching which there must be no delay. 
These observations apply not only to arrivals on the coast, 
but also to flocks travelling inland. This steady, regular 
movement—the best wind for seeing such being W.N.W.— 
may be witnessed and verified year by year during the great 
October migration, and will be found specially marked in the 
case of the Finches, Larks, Starlings, and Corvi. 
Now, if in order to witness actual migration the wind 
must be N.W., W.N.W., W., or W.S.W. (Ct will be most marked 
under the second condition), and if none is to be seen when 
the weather-cock points in other directions, it cannot be far 
wrong to surmise that the many migrants we find in their 
appropriate haunts, azd which have not been observed on 
passage, must have found when travelling one of the above- 
mentioned winds at a higher elevation,—one beyond the like- 
lihood of observation, and probably even beyond our powers 
of vision. These contrary currents may often be observed 
in studying the movement of the clouds, and I have many 
times seen migrants on passage against this higher wind at 
such an altitude that, had not my attention been attracted by 
the travellers’ notes, I should have missed the movement alto- 
gether. The fact, too, that birds found on the coast when 
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