48 THE GOLD-CRESTED WEEN 



island. On the following morning their merry call-note 

 resounds from the bushes and shrubs of all the gardens, and 

 even the grassy plain of the upper plateau teems with them 

 from one end to the other. ... In 1882 the earliest individuals 

 appeared on September 8, and the migration proceeded, with 

 occasional interruptions, in moderate numbers throughout the 

 month. With the approach of October a considerable increase 

 in the number took place, and on the night of the 28th the 

 migration assumed such vast dimensions that even an approxi- 

 mate computation of their numbers was quite out of the 

 question. Perhaps the simile of a snow-storm may help to 

 convey an idea of the scene. From ten at night till daybreak 

 the birds sped steadily from east to west, past the lighthouse, 

 appearing under the glare of the lantern like so many real 

 snowflakes driven by the wind. At daybreak the whole island 

 was literally covered with the birds, but by ten o'clock in the 

 morning the majority had again proceeded on their journey.' 



Breakfastless, no doubt, for even were Heligoland 

 covered with forests, instead of being a treeless tabular 

 island scarcely exceeding a mile in its greatest length, 

 it must long ago have been ' brosiered ' to use an 

 ancient term in Oxford slang its resources exhausted, 

 by successive multitudes of passengers. 



No doubt 1882 must have been an unusually favourable 

 year for the reproduction of goldcrests, and very great 

 was the consequent autumnal exodus from their breeding- 

 grounds, which extend from the British Isles through 

 central and northern Europe and Asia, along the limits 

 of the pines as far as Japan. Be it noted that the 

 multitudes witnessed by Gatke were but a single column 

 in the grand army on its southward inarch. Heligoland, 

 from its insular position, attracts countless multitudes 

 of migrant birds who alight there, but in the autumn 

 of 1882 unusual numbers of goldcrests were observed 



