3i8 



NATURE 



[January 4, 



i';i 



expen«ct of the department in 1910 were exactly i9C}I. ! 

 This hist detail ix one of the most instructive tacts 

 in the \vh<»lc business. 



Thf receipts of the Caisse in 1910 amounted to 

 iK.iKK)/. Its income is derived thus: the greater por- 

 tion is allotted annualiv bv the State from the State 

 revrnue as part of the S'ational Budjjet ; this averages 

 about Kooo/. Investments of capital bring in an m- 

 creasinj; sum. Lastly, there are bequests, subscri])- 

 lions. and gifts, from corporate bodies, societies, and 

 individuals. This last source naturally fluctuates. In 

 its ten years' history the Caisse has distributed 

 56,000/., of which 36,oo<}/. was allotted to biological 

 researches, and 16,000/. to investigations and exi)eri- 

 ments connected with the purification of water sup- 

 plies. 



M. de Foville |)oints out that the financial needs of 

 science increase with the scale of scientific operations 

 and with progress generally, and recommends the 

 Caisse as a channel for private donations which has 

 the advantage of imposing no restrictions or death- 

 duties on bequests made to its funds. 



France is also to be congratulated on possessing;! «i 

 society, de Secours des Amis dcs Sciences, the object 

 of which is to aid men of science and inventors who are 

 in material difliculties, and to relieve their widows 

 and children from destitution. Founded by Baron 

 L. J. Thenard in 1857, the society has distributed up 

 to the present time more than c)5,(xx)/. (not a million 

 pounds, as the Athenaeum of October 14 states). 

 Prof. O. Darboux makes an eloquent appeal on its 

 behalf to those who, like j^reat industrial and com- 

 mercial capitalists, owe so much to science, pure and 

 applied. He points out that as the number of 

 engineers, chemists, naturalists, biologists, and in- 

 ventors increases, the risks increase proportionally, and 

 the numbers, both of martyrs of science and of 

 victims of la misire, with them. Charity of this kind, 

 to those who have assisted to prevent human sufTering, 

 is, as the founder of the society remarked, " a work 

 of reparation and of social justice." 



England has only the precarious and arbitrary 

 awards of the Civil List. The French charitable 

 society is a complementary institution to its State aid 

 of research. In it there is a channel for the charit- 

 able impulse, more humane and more patriotic than 

 many of the usual forms of relief of destitution. As 

 for the Caisse des recherches scientifiques. France has 

 practically instituted (and the institution will grow) 

 the Establishment of Science. In this is the Erastian- 

 ism. and a sound Erastianism, of the future. 



A. E. Crawley. 



FACTS OF MIGRATION.' 



■pOR learned and unlearned alike there is a peculiar 

 ■*■ fascination in the migrational movements of 

 birds, and the more we know about them the more 

 the wonder grows. The problems now clearly dis- 

 cerned will probably afford material for several cent- 

 uries of inquiry, and there are others which we have 

 not yet learned to state. In all such cases it seems to 

 be in accordance with sound scientific method that we 

 should tackle the more tangible problems first, that 

 we should accumulate facts on all sides, and that we 

 should pursue different paths of inquiry in the hope 

 that their convergence may lead us to discovery. That 



1 Bulletin of the British Ornithologiol Club, edited by W. R. Ogilvie- 

 Granu Vol. xitviii. Report on the immiieration of summer residents in 

 the spring of 1910 : and also notes on the migratory movements and records 

 received from lighthouses and lisht vessels durinz the autumn of 1000. 

 liy the Committee appointed by the British Ornithologists' Club. August 

 1911. Pp. ^13. Many maps. (L.onr*on : Witherby .and Co.) Price &i. 



NO. 2201, VOL. 88] 



we lihould occa»ionally relieve tension by flying a 

 speculative kite will do no harm to anyone. 



Of the various paths of inquiry three st.nnd •■■■a 

 prominently, and as each is not only th' 

 reasonable, but has already led to somethioK 

 it is gratuitous to pit one iigainst another wluu nior< 

 than all are needed. First, there is the m»'thod i>i 

 registering the arrivals and departures, th< 

 and mov^^ments. in a small area, like Hel,. 

 Fair Island, which can be thoroughly < xpi. 

 Second, there is the method of markin^^ larj;e num 

 of mijjrants with inde.xed aluminium rings, in 

 hope of hearing again of the whereabouts of a -: 

 percentajje. How this method has already led t<. 

 marking out of a more than provisional migrati 

 route for the white stork is well known. Third, li..,' 

 is the method of collecting data, year after year, from 

 observers scattered over a wide area, both inland and 

 on lighthouses and lightships, who record times of 

 arrival and departure, great wave-like incursions, 

 marked increase and decrease in numbers, and th<- 

 like. 



It is this third method which has been followed 

 with praiseworthy persistence during the past six 

 years by the British Ornithologists' Club, the fact^ 

 reached beinjj recorded in a series of reports, of which 

 the sixth is now before us. What we have we are 

 grateful for, and we would claim recognition for the 

 industr>' and patience which the preparation of t! 

 reports has demanded from the members of the Mi. 

 tion ^"ommittee of the club, from the editor, Mr. 

 W. R. Ojrilvie-Grant, and from the large body of 

 observers throughout the country. It is no disparage- 

 ment, however, to point out that the report ha*^ 

 scarcely as yet got beyond the raw materials of science. 

 -As the introduction states emphatically enough :— 

 " When these investig'ations were first undertaken it 

 was decided that they should be carried on over a 

 period of ten years before any attempt was made to 

 generalise, or draw deductions from the facts > '- 

 lected." 



In the introduction a reference is made to a notice 

 of last year's report (Natcre, March 9, 1910), in which 

 a reviewer suj:jgested (amonpf other things) that .1 

 systematic " ringing " of the birds at the light stations 

 would probably produce good results. To us also this 

 seems a good suggestion, and the members of the 

 committee are theoretically of the same mind. We 

 ref^iret to see, however, that they ref^ard it as '* quite 

 impracticable." "We owe much to the courtesy of the 

 Elder Brethren for allowing their keepers to fill in our 

 schedules, but the latter could not be expected to 

 * ring ' birds, nor is it to be expected that the authori- 

 ties would allow unofficial obser\'ers to remain at the 

 lights durinjj the mijjration-season." We wonder, 

 however, whether the difficulties are insurmountable. 

 If so, it is a great pity. The lights are strategic 

 points, the number of birds that might be " ringed ** 

 is often large, and a little " ringing " mij^^ht save some 

 of the keepers from life-harminj:j heaviness. 



The arrival of our summer migrants began in iqio 

 on March 5 (with the chiffchaff), but it proceeded 

 slowly throutrh that somewhat exceptionally fine 

 month. E.xcept in the case of a few species, the 

 immigration did not beg'in until April 2, and continued 

 until May 23. After that there was little movement 

 observed, but a few species were unusually late (most 

 of May was cold, inclement, and wet). The main 

 body of spotted flycatchers did not arrive until June, 

 and in some places sedge-warblers had not reached 

 their breeding haunts by May 13. It will be very- 

 interesting to compare the data for igio with those 

 for the extracrdinarilv fine -iummer of loii. and it 



