356 THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 



mills, iron-works, crushing-mills, saw-mills, and rolling-mills, that 

 they have retired to districts lying far away from the noisy 

 occupations of mankind. How many thousands of places have, 

 through causes of this kind, lost their nightingales; and then 

 when their song is no longer heard, the fault is laid in most cases 

 to every possible cause but the right one. Not a word, however, 

 can be pleaded in excuse for such disgusting wholesale massacres 

 of the smallest songsters as seem to be carried on in Italy. 



The most terrible enemies of the smaller birds are the Crows, 

 Corvus comix and corone, of whose enormous numbers one can 

 have no conception, at least not on the mainland of Europe. 

 In Heligoland one is able to gain a more correct idea of their 

 numbers, especially during the autumn migration, when for more 

 than five weeks an almost incessant stream of these birds not 

 only passes across the island, but, so far as I have been able to 

 determine, extends at least eight geographical miles out to sea on 

 the north, and, on the south, to the German coast actually as far as 

 Bremerhaven ; thus presenting a migration-column of from thirty- 

 two to forty miles in breadth. The velocity of the flight of these 

 birds amounts, as has been shown in the first part of this work, to 

 108 geographical miles per hour ; let any one therefore form a con- 

 ception of the myriads of these creatures, reflecting at the same time 

 that every one of them, during the long summer days, from four in 

 the morning until late sunset, does nothing else than hunt for eggs 

 and young nestlings. After a consideration of this kind, we can 

 only feel astonished that there still exists any single small bird at 

 all. This work of annihilation is further aided by Magpies and 

 Jays, which, however, are fortunately not so rich in individuals as 

 the two species of Crows above referred to. 



Accordingly, it would be well for the protectors of our smaller 

 birds to seek as much as possible to limit the numbers of these 

 robbers. This, to be sure, seems a hopeless task enough when we 

 consider the immense extent of their breeding area extending on 

 the east beyond the Jenesei, though in Germany at all events it 

 might be carried out with success. 



The Skylark breeds from Portugal to Kamtschatka, and in the 

 north as far as upper Scandinavia. 



