MIGRATION ON THE COAST. 291 
to day in ever-increasing numbers, whilst the seas 
near by are becoming sprinkled with the earliest 
hosts of Ducks and Geese. The Terns, once 
more, are on the move, this time flying south to 
warmer seas. With the advent of October, most 
of our summer birds have gone, a few belated 
Swallows and Wheatears, a few venturesome 
Chiffchaffs and Wagtails, being all that remain. 
All the autumn through, however, coasting migrants 
of many species—the same that passed north in 
spring—continue flying south. Most of this migra- 
tion is from the north and north-east. 
Early in October, however, the direction of this 
great migrant tide falls nearly to due east, and from 
this time onwards, the English shores of the 
German Ocean, say from Yorkshire to the estuary 
of the Thames, become by far the most interesting 
of all our coast-line to the student of Migration. 
Normally the number of species is not very 
extensive, but. the number of individual birds can 
only be described as stupendous. The vast 
feathery tides of migrants that break in countless 
waves upon our eastern coasts in autumn, are 
composed of birds that breed in continental 
Europe and Western Asia, and return to the 
British Islands—the centre of their dispersal—to 
winter. The mighty inrush of birds must be 
seen to be properly appreciated. For days, for 
weeks, the wild North Sea is swept by these 
migrating myriads. By day, by night, the 
