CONDITIONS OF FLIGHT 239 



similar headland, or a wide expanse of heath or forest 

 may just as surely indicate the point where that sea- 

 passage terminates. Inland Routes are followed in 

 much the same manner, old familiar points being 

 recognized and passed with amazing precision every 

 year. I can recall many instances of birds passing 

 certain moorlands, certain sheets of water, certain woods 

 and heaths on migration with a regularity that must 

 surely indicate the appearance every season of the same 

 individuals or their direct descendants. 



A few words now on the Order of Migration. There 

 is a very generally prevalent idea that the young birds 

 are the first to migrate in autumn, and this has been 

 repeatedly brought forward as a most convincing proof 

 that birds are born with an instinctive knowledge of the 

 route they must traverse to their winter quarters. That 

 this order of migration prevails amongst many species 

 cannot be doubted. The young unquestionably appear 

 in many localities it may be weeks in advance of the 

 general migration of adult birds. But let it be remarked 

 that a few old birds invariably precede as well as 

 accompany these first flights of the young — old indi- 

 viduals with a full knowledge of the road that have 

 acted as guides to the inexperienced. Many young 

 birds, however, go astray on their autumn journey south, 

 and it is remarkable that the bulk of abnormal migrants 

 at that season is composed of young birds that have lost 

 their way. As I previously pointed out in the Migration 

 of Birds, the individuals that are the first to migrate in 

 autumn are birds that have been prevented from breed- 

 ing or that have lost their broods. Such individuals 

 have no parental instinct to restrain them from starting 



