232 MIGRATION OF THE ROBIN 



them move northward in spring and southward in 

 autumn. Those flocks which feed upon the fallows 

 and marshes of Kent at Christmastide, may nest in 

 Sutherland and Caithness, where there are no lapwings, 

 in winter; and the plovers' eggs collected in Surrey 

 and Hampshire must be laid by birds which wintered 

 in southern Europe. 



But to return to the robins. It has been thoroughly 

 well proved by the personal observation of skilled 

 ornithologists at different lighthouses, as well as by the 

 reports of lighthousemen trained to observation, that 

 very large flocks of robins, both of the British and 

 Continental races, do migrate seasonally. By this is 

 meant not a mere temporary shift of quarters during 

 cold spells in winter, but a regular regional movement 

 to and from the breeding haunts. 



There is no more desolate spot in the United King- 

 dom than the Flannan Isles or Seven Hunters, far to 

 westward of the northernmost Hebrides. A lighthouse 

 was built on the largest of them, Eilean-mor, in 1899 ; 

 and in the autumn of 1904 Mr. Eagle Clarke and Mr. 

 T. G. Laidlaw spent sixteen days in observation on 

 that precipitous rock. They reported the passage of 

 small companies of robins in spring and autumn ; while 

 a few individuals of this species appear there from 

 time to time throughout the winter. The same has 

 been noted in St. Kilda, which stands miles to the west 

 of the Seven Hunters, one should suppose on the road 

 to nowhere. How these little travellers, with whose 

 powers of flight we are best acquainted as they flit from 

 bush to bush in our gardens, are directed across tracts 



