MIGRATION AND FLIGHT. 21 



they hibernated at home — slevjt through the winter and spring, 

 rather than migrated abroad. Modern observation — like re- 

 flections on the brimstone punishment of original sin — have 

 destroyed this theory, and now it is believed that every one of 

 our birds is more or less migratory. 



An hour's trip across the Channel or to the south of France 

 may suffice for some, while others must visit the Holy Land or 

 the " Sad Soudan ; " but, far or near, like man, foreign travel 

 enters into the life of the majority of British birds. 



For much of our recent knowledge of the migration of birds 

 across our seas we are indebted to the British Association, which, 

 happily, utilised the lighthouses and lightships on the British 

 coasts as ornithological observatories. During 1884 schedules 

 were issued to two hundred of these, and from more than one 

 hundred of them returns were got ; therefore it is unlikely 

 that migration can go on without being observed either by night or 

 day. For at night the light attracts the birds, and numbers are 

 killed by dashing against the lanterns. In one night fifty 

 starlings were thus killed at the Tuskar lighthouse, on the 

 Irish coast, and all stations have a heavy annual death-rate from 

 the same cause. The object of the Association is to collect facts, 

 with the view of drawing conclusions as to the causes and ex- 

 tent, and the routes by which birds come and go. Each year 

 adds interesting facts to the law of migration. It has been 

 proved that, like the Gulf stream, or the annual course of 

 summer and winter, there are two distinct migrations going on 

 at the same time. One of these is illustrated by such birds as 

 the swallow, which conies in spring to breed, and retires in 

 autumn, with its brood, to moult and live during winter. 

 Independent of this, however, there is a continual stream of 

 immigrants week by week, and month by month, to the eastern 

 shores of our islands, coming directly across Europe from east to 

 west ; and the reverse on the return journey after their mission 

 has been fulfilled, like the coming and going of crowded railway 

 trains at certain times of the year. They come or go in one 

 broad stream, but denser on special lines or highways than others. 

 These arc mainly composed of well-known species which 

 annually make our islands their winter quarters, and take the 

 place of our summer birds. These observations show that birds 

 reach this country by the same routes and at the same times as 

 birds of the same species are leaving it. Such birds as crows, 

 rooks, jackdaws, starlings, larks, sparrows, buntings, and finches 

 are recorded as passing these stations towards Britain, and from 



