GATKE OF HELIGOLAND 169 



and ruptured an important tendon in his sound leg. 

 Thenceforward he went always with two instead of, as 

 formerly, with one stick, or (in the words of a friend of 

 his) from a three-legged he became a four-legged man. 



With one of Herr Gatke's points Newton found 

 himself unable to agree, and that was with regard to 

 the speed at which migrating birds travel. Gatke 

 maintained that Grey Crows flew from Heligoland to 

 Lincolnshire in three hours, at a rate of 120 miles an 

 hour, a speed which it would appear impossible for a 

 bird of the crow kind to attain. Still more wonderful 

 was Gatke's contention that the Bluethroat flies from, 

 the Nile Delta to Heligoland in nine hours, and his 

 observations of Curlews and Plovers, which were timed 

 to cross the island of Heligoland, a distance of rather 

 more than four miles, in one minute. Against these 

 Newton set the commonly observed instances of Swallows 

 and Partridges, which are easily outstripped by a railway 

 train, and the speed of Carrier Pigeons, which was de- 

 clared by Mr. Tegetmeier to be about thirty-six miles 

 an hour. 



Though it seemed that he almost despaired of an 

 answer ever being given to the fundamental questions of 

 migration, he spared neither time nor trouble in trying 

 to investigate the facts, so far as they might be observed, 

 of that wonderful movement. It was mainly owing to 

 his initiation that the British Association appointed in 

 1880 a committee to inquire into the migration of birds. 

 For twenty-three years (1880-1903) Newton presided 

 over this committee, which collected a great mass of 

 valuable information, chiefly through the untiring energy 

 of Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown and the late Mr. John Cor- 

 deaux. One of the schemes originated by the committee, 

 in which he took the most active interest, was that of 

 observing migration from lighthouses and light-vessels. 



