WHERE THE MIGRANTS GO. 247 



passes of the Alps, and along the coasts of Italy 

 and Turkey, crossing the Mediterranean at certain 

 well-adapted points, as by way of the Balearic 

 Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Candia, the 

 Greek Archipelago, and Cyprus. These routes 

 make the actual distance traversed across the sea 

 comparatively small ; and probably, at the vast 

 height these little travellers fly, land is rarely if 

 ever lost sight of. 



The habits of our summer migrants have been 

 but little observed in the southern lands to which 

 these birds retire in autumn. So far as we can 

 ascertain, some of them regain their lost songs 

 and warble through the winter. Such species as 

 the Willow Wren, the Chiffchaff, and the Black- 

 cap sometimes sing before they leave this country 

 in autumn, and the latter bird is known to warble 

 all the winter through, if we can apply the term 

 ''winter" to a land of almost perpetual summer. 

 But though these birds may engage in song, just 

 like the Robin and the Wren in our northern 

 woods, there is not a scrap of evidence to show 

 that any of them breed again in their winter 

 quarters. None of our summer migrants ever 

 appear to breed south of the equator, and of those 

 that do breed in Africa, they only nest during the 

 period of spring and summer in the northern 

 hemisphere. With the exception of the Swallows 

 and the Red-backed Shrike, all our summer 

 migrants moult before they leave us in autumn ; 

 and all the species which have a spring moult 



