2 BIRD-MIGRATION 



resident is the house-sparrow. Even the partridge, 

 hitherto looked on as the most confirmed stay-at-home, 

 has been detected making a passing call in Heligo- 

 land, as Herr Gatke assures us in his remarkable record 

 of fifty years' observation. 1 



Bird movement is one of the most venerable of 

 mysteries. From the earliest times birds were looked 

 on as messengers between heaven and earth, between 

 invisible and visible beings: the time, the mode, the 

 direction of their flight, were interpreted to indicate 

 the future course of events affecting nations as well as 

 individuals; but we have grown so knowing that, 

 although ' augury ' and ' auspice ' are still words of 

 honest repute in our language, few who use them 

 connect them with avis, a bird, whence they are 

 derived. 



But no sooner has mankind learnt to blush for the 

 folly of his ancestors in connecting the flight of birds 

 with coming events, than a new significance begins to 

 dawn, and the phenomena of migration are found 

 shedding light on the remote past of the globe. Ex- 

 cluding grouse, partridges, pheasants, the cock-sparrow 

 aforesaid, and a few a very few others, the rest of the 

 species in the British list, numbering less than four 

 hundred all told, are known now to occupy different 

 latitudes in summer and in winter. Even blackbirds 

 and thrushes, robins and wrens, commonly regarded as 

 part of the permanent furniture of an English garden, 



i Heligoland as an Ornithological Observatory. By Herr Gatke. 

 Edinburgh : D. Douglas, 1895. 



