MIGRATION ON THE COAST. 285 
during the night, and thus escape observation; 
many others, it may be, pass to inland haunts by 
day, but without alighting upon the coast at all, 
flying at altitudes which render their identification, 
or even detection, impossible; but then there are 
many more, and especially in autumn, when the 
flight is generally far more leisurely than in spring, 
which crowd upon the coasts, or pass along them, 
within easy view of the most casual scrutiny. It 
may here, perhaps, be advisable to allude to the 
general order in which migrants usually appear 
upon the coast. Of course, it is utterly impossible, 
within the narrow limits of the present chapter, to 
enter very minutely into the many and intricate 
phenomena connected with the migration of birds, 
The reader anxious for further and more detailed 
information on this very interesting subject, may be 
referred to the present writer's works upon Migra- 
tion, and to that on the birds of Heligoland, by 
Herr Gatke.* Now, as regards the actual order of 
appearance. In spring, the observer will almost 
invariably find that the adult males are in the van; 
the females are the next to arrive, whilst the young 
of the preceding summer, and the more or less 
weakly individuals, bring up the rear. Many of 
these young and sickly birds pass the summer far 
south of the usual breeding-grounds; so that it is 
by no means an uncommon thing to find individuals 
* The Migration of Birds; The Migration of British Birds; 
Ffeligoland an Ornithological Observatory. 
