39 



Heligoland, but our data lead us to believe that such cases are 

 the rare exception, not the rule." According to the same gentle- 

 man, the records kept at the Outer Dowsing Lightship, the most 

 isolated of the stations in the North Sea, situated thirty-eight miles 

 E.S.E. off the mouth of the Humber, or almost in the exact lati- 

 tude of Heligoland, strikingly confirm this opinion. 



It is difficult to see on what grounds Herr Gatke has based 

 his theory that the general course of migration trends from east to 

 west. Apart from his own observations conducted on Heligoland 

 he brings forward very little confirmatory evidence. He, how- 

 ever, in one place refers to a statement of the late John Wolley's 

 as furnishing the most northern illustration of an autumn migra- 

 tion proceeding in this direction. It appears that the latter 

 observer, after only a year's residence at Muonioniska, in lat. 68'^ 

 N., came to this conclusion on account of the large numbers of 

 the Yellow Bunting he met with at the close of summer. These, 

 in his opinion, could only have come from a district lying to the 

 east, Mr. Seebohm, however, considered this species rather rare 

 in the Petchora district ; whilst Collett states that even in the 

 extreme north of Norway a few individuals remain throughout the 

 winter ("Bird Life in Arctic Norway"). If follows, therefore, 

 that the present species is an abundant summer migrant in the 

 latter locality. Herr Gatke, however, even in this instance, is 

 constrained to admit that the further course of migration on the 

 part of this Bunting must be to the south, otherwise it should 

 visit the Shetlands in large numbers, whilst the reverse is actually 

 the case. Compared with the distance travelled in the latter 

 direction any westward flight, which, moreover, would be hardly 

 likely to comence further east than the shores of the Kola Penin- 

 sala, is very trivial. 



Herr Gatke also calls attention to the presence of countless 

 droves of land birds, both of the larger and smaller species, as 

 well as of Ducks, Geese, Swans, and other water birds, which 

 may be seen in the aatumn months on the coasts and interior 

 parts of the west of Scotland. All these, he states, are hasten- 

 ing to their winter quarters in a southerly or south-south-easterly 

 course. This may be true of the land birds, not only at that par- 

 ticular time and locality, but may equally well refer to the whole 



