90 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



host : these are thoughts suggested by this immense 

 train of bird travellers. The train could not have 

 been less than a hundred miles long. From one 

 point on the cliff I saw it for two hours driving 

 on through half a mile of space, and was told it 

 had been passing over that half-mile nearly two 

 hours before I noticed it. Thus, to put it at a 

 hundred miles may well be to underrate that line 

 of voyagers ; for, despite the rough north wind, they 

 moved west at a good pace, I should say from twenty 

 to thirty miles an hour. 



As to the strength of the wind, I noticed a curious 

 effect it had on some of the fieldfares and redwings 

 nearing the end of their journey; they appeared to 

 flinch from the force of the wind above the cliff, 

 wind perhaps at this point thrown up vertically, 

 making a maelstrom in the air above ; they drifted 

 for a little distance sideways, heads turned from the 

 wind, in some cases almost at right angles to it. 

 But these may have been tired birds, which had 

 dropped beaten among the sand dunes and after a 

 while risen to their journey again. On the whole, 

 the travellers flew clean and straight, their heads 

 pointing due west, as if the hard side-wind little 

 tried them. 



The rush west before the snow and storm raises 

 questions of deep interest. First, as to organisation. 

 Here my belief is that there was nothing in the 

 movement like human organisation. This is what 



