BIRD-LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



observation ; the Wryneck, said by some authorities 

 to be a casual visitor only, although we are of 

 opinion that it nests, if rarely, in Devonshire; the 

 Corncrake, much rarer and more local in the 

 county, only breeding sparingly in the south; 

 the Kentish Plover, normally entirely absent, 

 although we might have expected it to pass our 

 entire southern coasts; the Wood and Green 

 Sandpipers, much less frequent in the south- 

 west th^kn in the eastern counties. Now 

 these facts are too palpable to be ignored, and 

 suggest, beyond all possibility of doubt, that 

 migration in the west of England is compara- 

 tively much weaker than it is farther east, and in 

 the cases of not a few species is normally absent 

 altogether. We maintain that these facts are not 

 anomalies, but due to a certain fixed law of dis- 

 persal and migration, which forbids species in 

 the Northern Hemisphere either to extend their 

 area of distribution in a southerly direction or to 

 migrate in that direction to breed. The species 

 that are entirely absent from the south-west of 

 England, including, of course, South Devonshire, 

 and obviously only entering the British area 

 farther east, would have to migrate south in 



