JANUARY 3 



are almost as regular migrants as the swallows, cuckoos, 

 and woodcocks, and have been proved to stream across 

 the sea in vast numbers in spring and autumn, though 

 probably a few individuals remain behind. It is quite 

 true that many kinds of bird may be seen in certain 

 parts of the British Isles in every month in the year. 

 Take curlews, golden plover, and lapwing, for instance. 

 It would be a mistake to suppose that the individuals 

 of these species haunting our moors in July form any 

 part of the flocks frequenting the estuaries in December 

 The plover seen in England in January were bred in 

 latitudes far north of ours ; some of them, no doubt, in 

 Sutherland and Caithness, where no lapwings remain 

 in winter ; those that were bred on the Northumberland 

 moors last spring are disporting themselves just now 

 in Southern Europe, Africa, and Asia. England happens 

 to be situated just where the two bodies of migrants, 

 the northern-bred birds and the southern, overlap; 

 consequently, these species are never without represen- 

 tation on our shores. 



And what is the suggestion which has begun to 

 glimmer on observers of these phenomena ? A very 

 startling one, in truth. The fact, now pretty well 

 established, that every bird known in our islands breeds 

 at the northern limit of its annual migration, taken in 

 connection with the invincible habit of birds to return 

 to their birthplaces for nesting, 1 seems to point to the 



1 A good instance of this conservative instinct has been given by 

 Professor Newton, as shown by a pair of stone curlews, a species 

 which haunts the open downs and nests in the barest places. This 

 pair had chosen a barren rabbit warren to rear their young. The 



