342 Wonders of the Bird World 



into a tangle of millions. Yet who has ever seen them come ? 

 True, they may not all cross the North Sea ; but who has 

 seen the Swallows and Willow-wrens arrive in England, 

 and they must cross the Channel ? Has migration ever been 

 seen in full swing by daylight ? I mean the actual process 

 of migration, as distinguished from mere evidences of its 

 progress. Sitting, on mild November nights, in my garden 

 at Roker, with nothing but the North Sea between me and 

 the fjelds of Norway, or the sand-dunes of Jutland, I have 

 listened to the single pipe of the Red-wings (and less often 

 to the note of Field-fares, which are more silent) as they 

 ' made the land ' between ten and eleven o'clock. These 

 birds presumably had left the opposite shore at dusk that 

 evening, and had covered some three hundred and fifty 

 miles in five or six hours. No one sees them start, no one 

 witnesses their arrival. But of course the North Sea 

 passage is merely exercise for strong-flying species. Is it 

 the same with feebler kinds ? 



"In reply I will venture on a somewhat bold opinion. I 

 am convinced that many birds of migratory habits are 

 absolutely incapable, under normal conditions, of flying 

 three hundred miles, or anything like it. Among such I 

 would include all short-winged Warblers, Chats, and Gold- 

 crests, Quail, Landrail, etc. These birds are neither ' built 

 nor engined ' for long flights ; in their normal lives they 

 never undertake such flights, and I do not believe, under 

 ordinary conditions, that they are capable of performing 

 them. No one who has watched their feeble, flickering 

 flight in mid-sea, can believe it. Yet, on the other hand, we 

 have confronting us the solid fact that twice in every year 

 these tiny creatures do traverse Europe from end to end. 

 The solution I am neither learned enough nor clever enough 

 to suggest : but it seems certain that some great facts or 

 factors governing migration have been overlooked, or yet 

 remain to be discovered. 



