194 MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. 



vast numbers of migrants especially redwings and 

 fieldfares which streamed into England from 

 Scandinavia with the east winds of the latter part of 

 October. But such prophecies are necessarily un- 

 reliable, because an unusual influx of foreign mi- 

 grants may be due to different causes. It may 

 merely mean that the birds have enjoyed a favour- 

 able season for breeding in their northern homes, 

 and have multiplied inordinately. On the other 

 hand, it may have indeed been severe and bitter 

 weather which drove a larger number of birds than 

 usual to the south and west, but the cold winds may 

 have died away before they reached these islands, 

 which are ordinarily dominated by the genial in- 

 fluences of the warm Atlantic. Or, again, the extra- 

 ordinary influx of redwings, fieldfares, and other 

 common travellers may have been caused by the fact 

 that the wind blew directly from the east at the time 

 of their migration as, in fact, it did and thus 

 brought to England hundreds of thousands of birds 

 which would otherwise, with a north wind, have 

 reached the mainland of Europe. It is, therefore, 

 of little use to attempt to forecast the character of 

 a whole season from the arrivals of winter birds, 

 although these undoubtedly inform us of the direc- 

 tion of the wind which brought them ; and since a 

 wind from north or east in winter infallibly brings 

 cold weather, it is safe, nine times out of ten, to 

 predict at least a short spell of hard weather when 

 migrants are flocking in to our north and east coasts. 



