MIGRATION IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 273 



spring to reach that district; while the extreme 

 localness or rarity of other species proves that 

 they do not enter the country farther east and 

 then migrate south-west, and that the much wider 

 sea passage in the west is not only more fatal to 

 the birds that cross it, but is essayed by a vastly 

 less number of individuals. If these birds were 

 equally common in the south-west of England 

 as in more northern and eastern districts, we 

 should find either a southern movement after 

 entering our area, or as strong a migration across 

 the wider portions of the English Channel as 

 across the narrower portions, slightly more north 

 and much farther east two assumptions which 

 have no facts whatever to support them. And 

 yet we are gravely told in a work by Messrs. 

 D' Urban and Mathew on the birds of Devon, 

 that some of these summer migrants actually reach 

 the extreme south-west of England after migrating 

 across Europe and the German Ocean; entering 

 the British area by the Wash, crossing the Mid- 

 lands or central counties to the Bristol Channel, 

 and then turning south into Somerset and Devon- 

 shire ! It is difficult to believe that these are 



serious views and mature opinions; or that the 



18 



