50 THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS 



also be to reach a zone or stratum of atmosphere in 

 which flight may be more easily accomplished. 

 Robert Service's account of the departure of migrants 

 from the Solway shores, gives suggestion of high 

 flight. They arrive often one by one and " seem to 

 drop literally from the clouds/' but when they 

 actually departed it was easy to see their method. 

 They " fly upwards and onwards, then they hesitate, 

 fly sideways once or twice, again attempt an upward 

 and onward flight, hesitate again, and down they 

 come once more to earth/' After repeating this 

 manoeuvre several times, " away they go over the 

 sea." One morning he counted sixty blackbirds in 

 one hedge, and others kept arriving, but, however 

 closely he watched, he failed to see whence they came. 

 " They came down from the upper air, becoming 

 suddenly visible, sometimes three at a time." " I 

 saw about a dozen birds thus drop into view, but 

 I quite failed to see any indication of the point of 

 the compass from whence they had come " (46). 



Gatke frequently mentions birds raining down 

 from the sky, appearing first as mere specks, and 

 dropping vertically to the island, and others when 

 departing " with breasts directed upwards and rapid 

 powerful strokes of the wings, fly almost perpen- 

 dicularly upwards." 



On May 24th, 1911, I watched the departure of a 

 spoonbill from Easton Broad on the Suffolk coast. 



