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thereby to forsake their normal course, when the great body of 

 theu' fellows remain unaffected. 



With regard to migrations of Eichard's Pipit being conducted 

 in a broad front corresponding in width to the latitudinal area of 

 the breeding-range, no more telling facts against such a theory 

 than those related by Herr Gatke could well be adduced. 

 Remarking on the numbers of the species occurring in Heligo- 

 land, he writes (p. 118) : — " Again, if twenty, fifty, or even a 

 hundred examples of Richard's Pipit occur here in one day, 

 these numbers can only represent a minute fraction of the 

 quite incomputable quantity of these birds which are travel- 

 ling at the same period from Dauria to Western Europe." 

 Whatever the probabilities are of the Yellow-browed Warbler 

 or other species being overlooked in their European winter 

 quarters, it is quite impossible that a much larger species 

 with a loud clear call-note and in " incomputable quantities " 

 could escape observation in like manner. For, apart from its 

 much greater size, the present species frequents the open 

 country and not bushes and thickets like the former, as Herr 

 Gatke points out. It is more, perhaps, on account of these habits 

 and general conspicuousness, that Richard's Pipit has been so 

 frequently observed in Western Europe than by reason of its 

 occurrence in any supposed vastly greater abundance than the 

 Yellow-browed Warbler. No doubt it does actually occur in 

 larger numbers than the latter, though not to anything like the 

 extent Herr Gatke' s theories require. One also wonders what 

 becomes of these supposed vast flocks, or in what particular 

 country they find winter quarters. Perhaps, like several other 

 species, they are assumed to pass over those districts where they 

 are unknown, at a great elevation, though even under these cir- 

 cumstances, they might reasonably be expected to be observed 

 on the theory of a rigidly performed east-to-west flight. 



It will be interesting to compare Herr Gatke's notes on the 

 migration of Richard's Pipit, published in another place, with 

 the foregoing. Since the appearance of the first edition of his 

 work — writing in the Zoologist, 1893, p. 164, in reply to a 

 communication from the late Henry Seebohm — he remarks : 

 " Widely different stands the case with Anthus Richardi, a 

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