GOLDEN-CRESTED WEEN. 137 



sand banks of the Northumbrian coast, many of them 

 so fatigued by the length of their flight, or perhaps by 

 the unfavourable shift of the wind, as to be unable to 

 rise again from the ground ; and great numbers were in 

 consequence caught or destroyed. The flight must have 

 been immense in number, as its extent was traced 

 through the whole length of the coasts of Northumber- 

 land and Durham. There appears little doubt of this 

 having been a migration from the more northern pro- 

 vinces of Europe (probably furnished by the pine forests 

 of Norway, Sweden, &c.), from the circumstance of its 

 arrival being simultaneous with that of great flights of 

 the woodcock, fieldfare, and redwing." The occurrence 

 of large flights in a similar manner on the Caithness 

 and Yorkshire coasts, in October, 1863, during severe 

 gales from the south-east,* are also recorded in the 

 "Zoologist" for the following year (pp. 8879, 8950). 

 From the above and many other equally trust-worthy 

 instances of actual migration, the sudden appearance 

 amongst us of this species in autumn, in unusual 

 numbers, is fully accounted for, but when either 

 handling a specimen of this most elegant and fragile 

 species, or watching a small family group desporting 

 themselves amongst the foliage of the ornamental firs 

 in our gardens and shrubberies, one is lost in astonish- 

 ment that this feathered mite should be capable, not 

 only of a sustained flight, but of encountering the vicissi- 

 tudes of such a journey, at a season when the weather 



* The apparent anomaly of migrants from more northern 

 countries appearing during gales from the south, or south-west, is 

 accounted for by the violence of the head-wind which prevents the 

 birds from continuing their journey, and thus large flocks that 

 would otherwise have passed on unobserved, are suddenly found 

 on our coast in an exhausted state. This fact is particularly re- 

 ferred to by Messrs. A. and E. Newton, in their " Observations on 

 the Birds of St. Croix." " Ibis," 1859, p. 255. 



