16 



It will be observed that these dates do not altogether coincide 

 with those recorded at Heligoland. 



Now let us also see what constitutes a rush on the east coast 

 of Scotland. Again quoting from the same source we find — 

 " The numbers recorded are, on 11th and 12th one shot by 

 J. A. H. B. ; no more till 23rd ; eighteen flying north (and 

 Eooks), forty on 24th, and forty on 25th, with one Carrion Crow. 

 Continued on 26th. Again in November, a number for some 

 days at Sumburgh Head on 10th ; also at Pentland Skerries 

 a few, and the indication of a rush at Isle of May, on 12th and 

 15th, flocks of nine and twelve having been seen on these dates." 

 Compared with the myriads recorded from Heligoland these 

 numbers are utterly insignificant. [Though too long to be 

 quoted here, the remarks of Messrs. Harvie Brown, and Cordeaux, 

 on the stretches of coast on the east of Great Britain — most 

 favoured as points of arrival by immigrant birds — will be found 

 especially interesting in connection with the theory that migra- 

 tion is performed in a broad front (see reports for 1885).] 



It may here be remarked with reference to this rush of 

 Hooded Crows in October, 1884, that the chief lines of flight 

 were S.E. to N.W., E. to W., and S. to N.W., as observed at 

 various light vessels and lighthouses adjacent to the east coast 

 of England; thus showing — if we grant the identity of the flocks 

 passing Heligoland with those arriving on our Lincolnshire coast — 

 that the rigid east-to-west direction, which this flight is originally 

 supposed to have possessed, had undergone a certain amount of 

 deviation before reaching the latter locality. 



The above evidence will perhaps justify our assumption that 

 over whatever breadth the migration front extended at the time 

 of its inception, it had become considerably contracted by the 

 time it reached our shores, and bore no adequate relation to the 

 latitudinal area of the breeding range. And with regard to the 

 general direction of the flight we cannot conceive that a district 

 thirty-six miles, or fifty miles in breadth, even if it extend to 

 the valley of the Lena, could produce the species iu such great 

 abundance. Does it not follow, therefore, that at some period 

 of the journey, there must be concentration on to some common 

 fly-line of all the migratory individuals of this species, from 



