6 LLANDDWYN 



But such a bar needed not to check the further 

 western extension of the Redstart's range. Able and 

 accustomed to pass the sea in flight, how comes it 

 that this bird is very rare in Ireland? No one, 

 judging by the Redstart's habits in England, could 

 predict that it would find aught amiss in Irish sur- 

 roundings. Indeed, the fact that it does not avoid 

 that country proves that the locality is not at fault. 

 Why, then, should the bird visit it in such small 

 numbers ? 



If one observes birds even no further afield than 

 in the neighbourhood of one's own home, it soon 

 appears that the same classes of birds return to the 

 same spots year by year. Indeed, it is not impossible 

 at times to demonstrate that the same particular 

 bird returns to the old spot. Migratory birds have 

 definite winter quarters and definite summer quarters, 

 and fairly defined paths between them. They do not 

 wander abnormal cases excepted they travel, with 

 a goal they know, when they see it. Thus birds 

 return to a place because they have been there 

 before. 



The Redstarts that return to Ireland every spring 

 go there because they have been there before. 

 They are here on the western fringe of their area of 

 distribution; and seeing that so few of them pass 

 over into Ireland, it would appear to be by a com- 

 paratively recent extension of their breeding range. 

 For if that extension had taken place so long ago as 

 when land was still continuous from England to 

 Ireland, there would in all probability be many more 

 of them than are now found breeding there. It is 

 highly improbable, however, that they would of them- 



