DECEMBER 267 



migration is how multitudes of birds, whether grain- 

 eating or insect- eating, arriving in rapidly successional 

 flocks on rock-bound coasts like those of Greece or 

 Albania, can find nourishment to fit them for the rest 

 of a journey whereof the end may still be many 

 thousands of miles distant. 



LXV 



For some years past Mr. J. H. Gurney has contri- 

 buted annually to the Zoologist a report on the Blrd notes 

 ornithology of Norfolk, which never fails to from East 

 contain much interesting matter. His report An & lia 

 for the year 1906 appeared in the April number of that 

 journal, and records the occurrence of an unusual 

 number of fatalities to wild birds. I do not refer to 

 the ordinary, senseless, apparently incorrigible practice 

 of shooting at every strange or beautiful bird that 

 ventures to alight on our inhospitable shores ; that con- 

 tinues as of yore, though there are welcome signs that 

 an increasing number of consciences are being pricked 

 by protests in the press and elsewhere. Mr. Gurney 's 

 paper contains evidence of the necessity for reiterating 

 such protests until it is generally counted a shameful 

 thing to destroy feathered strangers, the more so 

 because many of these are not truly wild, but stragglers 

 from aviaries or colonies of acclimatisation. The in- 

 corrigible propensity of birds, especially water-fowl, to 

 wander from the security of such places is a perpetual 

 source of disappointment to those who care only to 

 rear birds with their power of flight unimpaired, and 



