ORDER OF MIGRATION ACCORDING TO AGE AND SEX 107 



bable cause of their occurrence has been already indicated above. 

 Another exception of the same kind occurs in the case of the 

 Golden Plover, also referred to above, solitary old individuals 

 of which species are likewise seen here long before the commence- 

 ment of the autumn migration of the young birds. 



It is of course possible that among these birds there may be some 

 individual or other of which the brood has perished, though it 

 seems more probable that they belong to the numerous shore-birds 

 which, during the summer months, roam around the islands, coasts, 

 and estuaries of the North Sea. Such birds though almost all of 

 them are old individuals, and in full breeding plumage have 

 nevertheless made no attempt at breeding ; and they thus terminate 

 an irregular and aimless existence during the spring and summer by 

 an equally irregular migration in autumn. To these belong, more 

 especially, the Grey Plover, the Bar-tailed Godwit, the Oyster- 

 catcher, the Curlew, the Whimbrel, the Knot, the Dunlin, and the 

 Sanderling, and, more rarely, some one or another species of Totanus. 



Collett, in regard to this phenomenon, says, that whenever he 

 visited, during the summer months, the most southern extremity of 

 Norway, he met there either large flocks or single individuals of 

 the above-named species, which remained there the whole summer, 

 for the most part wearing their full breeding garb that they 

 awaited the arrival there of the flocks proceeding in August from 

 the north, and then travelled in their company to the south 

 (Journal fur Ornithologie, July 1881). Collett thinks that these 

 may prove to be individuals not yet endowed with reproductive 

 capacities ; to this view however is opposed the fact that the majority 

 of such birds at least as far as they have been killed here are old 

 individuals in the purest and most beautiful breeding plumage. 



Solitary individuals of the species of Sandpipers enumerated 

 above, in much worn and faded breeding plumage, occur regularly 

 during July and at the beginning of August, arriving, sometimes 

 before the young birds, sometimes simultaneously with them, 

 though never in their company. The true autumn migration of 

 such old individuals as have really bred in the far north or east, 

 does not however commence until the beginning of the winter 

 months, at which period of the year these old birds are clad 

 regularly in their complete winter plumage, not excepting even the 

 old Golden Plovers, which pass through here in October. 



All the migrants which pass this island in the autumn have, with 

 some isolated exceptions, their plumage perfectly developed hi 

 every part. The few exceptions to this rule are solitary old indivi- 

 duals of the Peregrine Falcon, as well as a few other large birds of 

 prey. Besides these, the only actual instances with which I am 



