326 Wonders of the Bird World 



while at the same time the influence of Professor S. F. 

 Baird in America, was beginning to make itself felt in 

 the interest of more exact and careful study. The result 

 has been that both in Great Britain and in America the 

 school of younger ornithologists has been educated in the 

 method of exact work instilled into them by those " Grand 

 Old Men," the masters of Ornithology in the nineteenth 

 century. 



In the British Museum to-day reposes most of the 

 material which was gathered together by the ornithologists 

 above-mentioned and their pupils, and it has been a great 

 pleasure to me to witness the gradual incorporation of the 

 collections made by British naturalists and travellers in all 

 quarters of the globe ; for now we have material, collected 

 with the greatest care and exactness, which illustrates not 

 only the differences of plumage in old birds and their 

 young, but traces out their geographical distribution with 

 such nicety that even the migrations of the species 

 can often be followed from a study of the specimens 

 alone. 



Nevertheless there is still an enormous amount of work 

 to be done, if only in the way of summarizing the many 

 reports on migration which are published every year in the 

 different countries of Europe, and I am glad to know that 

 Mr. Eagle Clarke is likely to publish a book on the subject. 

 He is the greatest living authority on the subject, and if 

 any one wants to know what such a work means, let him 

 study his ' Digest of Observations on Migration of Birds at 

 Lighthouse and Light-vessels, 1886 — 1897.' This report 

 of twenty-seven pages represents eight years of close 

 application to the task. 



One of the most interesting of Mr. Eagle Clarke's con- 

 clusions is that the migration of birds, from east and west, 

 across Heligoland, has apparently nothing to do with the 

 migration which touches the east coast of England from the 



