MIGRATION ON THE COAST. 291 



to day in ever-increasing numbers, whilst the seas 

 near by are becoming sprinkled with the earliest 

 hosts of Ducks and Geese. The Terns, once 

 more, are on the move, this time flying south to 

 warmer seas. With the advent of October, most 

 of our summer birds have gone, a few belated 

 Swallows and Wheatears, a few venturesome 

 ChiffchafTs and Wagtails, being all that remain. 

 All the autumn through, however, coasting migrants 

 of many species the same that passed north in 

 spring continue flying south. Most of this migra- 

 tion is from the north and north-east. 



Early in October, however, the direction of this 

 great migrant tide falls nearly to due east, and from 

 this time onwards, the English shores of the 

 German Ocean, say from Yorkshire to the estuary 

 of the Thames, become by far the most interesting 

 of all our coast-line to the student of Migration. 

 Normally the number of species is not very 

 extensive, but the number of individual birds can 

 only be described as stupendous. The vast 

 feathery tides of migrants that break in countless 

 waves upon our eastern coasts in autumn, are 

 composed of birds that breed in continental 

 Europe and Western Asia, and return to the 

 British Islands the centre of their dispersal to 

 winter. The mighty inrush of birds must be 

 seen to be properly appreciated. For days, for 

 weeks, the wild North Sea is swept by these 

 migrating myriads. By day, by night, the 



