°g" Loomis on Birds of Chester County, South Carolina. 20 



variation of route, and to meteorological conditions, occasioning 

 deflected, arrested, regurgitated, and involuntary movement. 1 



An instance of deflected migration appears to be afforded in the 

 presence of the Bobolink here in unwonted numbers in August, 

 1SS7, after a violent gale along the North Carolina coast. Per- 

 haps additional instances are found in the relative abundance in 

 different springs of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and also of the 

 Canadian Warbler, and in their casual presence in autumn. 

 The 'tidal wave' mentioned by Drs. Coues and Prentiss in 

 'Avifauna Columbiana' (pp. 31, 32) seems to have been due 

 to deflection — deflection apparently from the Appalachian High- 

 lands. The height of the 'wave' was doubtless increased by a 

 subsequent arresting of its progress through cold to the north- 

 ward. 



Local deflection occasioned by fog has incidentally been 

 referred to in the Northern Phalaropes at Monterey Bay. A 

 'more striking illustration was furnished in two purely pelagic 

 species in the same locality. On the morning of August 4 a 

 heavy bank of fog which had been resting over the ocean beyond 

 the headlands set into the Bay. I was out on the Bay, several 

 miles oft' Point Pinos, at the time. Soon after the coming of 

 the fog a number of Shearwaters were seen a little further out, 

 flying rapidly seaward. In a short time they were followed by 

 others, singly, in little companies, and in straggling flocks of 

 considerable size. As the fog became denser it was seen that 

 their line of movement was bearing more and more toward the 

 south shore. Their flight was near the surface of the water, 

 and, as there was a heavy swell, when the boat was in the 

 trough, as they suddenly appeared in the fog over the crest of 

 a wave, it seemed almost as if they emerged from the wave 

 itself. When the boat was sighted, if too near, they would 

 diverge from it so as to pass to one side, but without altering 



1 Destruction of bird life by storms, especially during migration over extended 

 bodies of water, has not been enumerated as among the probable causes of erratic 

 variability, for the mortality would have to be very great indeed, far above the average, 

 to be generally appreciable along the avenues of migration. There would have to be 

 wholesale extermination among the legions of a species to produce marked diminu- 

 tion, which could only be followed by continued scarcity during recuperation — an 

 event that has not come within the range of my observation. The disastrous effects 

 of the elements would be more readily perceived on the breeding grounds. 



