BRITISH GENERAL MIGRATORY MOVEMENTS 591 



Whooper-s\van. P. Goldeneye. P. Sinew. Great northern-diver. P. 



Bewick's swan. P. Longtailed-duck. Rednecked-grebe. P. Great-shearwater. 1 



Scaup. P. Velvet-scoter. P. 



The sooty and Levantine-shearwaters may be classed as winter visitors, but their 

 appearance, though not infrequent, is mainly autumnal. Like the great-shearwater, they reach 

 us from more southern breeding areas. 



VIII. BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



The birds of passage, or " spring and autumn " migrants, which treat our hospitable islands 

 as places of rest and refreshment on a longer journey to and from northern breeding haunts 

 and southern winter quarters, form a large and important class, mainly composed of species 

 which are represented in Britain by individuals already referred to in other divisions. These 

 passage birds may travel slowly through inland districts ; they may loiter along our shores, or 

 they may merely pay a hurried visit, for rest or food, to some convenient bay, headland, or 

 islet. On the spring passage birds like the Greenland-wheatear, whimbrel, and sanderling, 

 bound for far north, are in no hurry to leave our food-supplying land before the vernal 

 isotherms have made the North habitable. Immature and non-breeding examples of winter 

 visitors and birds of passage, such as the curlew-sandpiper, knot, turnstone, and sanderling, not 

 infrequently remain throughout the summer on our shores ; and, indeed, many of these are 

 classed as winter visitors, because individuals (numerous enough at times) make our islands 

 the southern limit of their winter wanderings, although others of their species may proceed 

 far south of the Equator. 



The birds of passage travel northward by both the east and west coasts of Britain, and 

 along either coast of Ireland, while many travel overland. Some continue to the Orkney and 

 Shetland Islands, where the routes divide, one stream leading eastward towards the Norwegian 

 shores, and the other north-west towards Iceland. Many east coast travellers leave our shores 

 long before they reach Northern Scotland. Some may leave for the Dutch and Belgian shores 

 from East Anglia, but a larger number split off from the Humber northwards, and strike 

 diagonally towards the Baltic or the Scandinavian Peninsula across the North Sea. 



The task of making a list of the regular birds of passage is a most difficult one, and is 

 subject to the criticisms of any ornithologist who may hold particular views about the 

 regularity of appearance or the stability of the route of any particular species. The following 

 birds have, in the writer's opinion, occurred a sufficient number of times, and have recurred at 

 the same season in the same locality with sufficient regularity to warrant their inclusion as 

 regular visitants on passage migration to our area. As the study advances others, now simply 

 included as accidental or casual visitors, will be shown to have equal claim. 



Scarlet-grosbeak. Barred-warbler. Little-stint. 



Ortolan-bunting. Great grey-shrike. Temminck's stint. 



Little-bunting. Woodchat. Curlew-sandpiper. 



Lapland-bunting. Redbreasted-flycatcher. Wood-sandpiper.* 



Richard's pipit. Roller. Spotted-redshank. 



Tawny-pipit. 2 Black-tern. Blacktailed-godwit. 



Water-pipit. Whitewinged black-tern. Roughlegged-buzzard. 



Firecrest. Sabine's gull. Honey-buzzard. 



Norwegian-bluethroat. Grey-phalarope. Spoonbill. 



Yellowbrowed-warbler. Great-snipe. Glossy-ibis. 



Icterine-warbler. Avocet. 



1 Really a winter visitor from its southern breeding haunts south of the Equator, its winter being our summer. 

 1 Has bred in Britain. 



