MIGRATION 107 



the crests of the waves, and thus apparently escape the full force 

 of the wind. 



The main facts with regard to the migration of birds, and the 

 sorting out of our resident and migratory species, can be best 

 brought home perhaps by inducing children to draw up lists of 

 the birds to be met with month by month, or at any rate peri- 

 odically. The " absentees " from such lists, which will soon 

 be noticeable, must then be accounted for. During the autumn, 

 for instance, they should be bidden to look out for the arrival 

 of the redwing, fieldfare and hooded crow, for instance. Even 

 city dwellers may expect to find these in the larger public parks, 

 as well as starlings and other birds which during the summer 

 move out into the country. With the return of spring a host 

 of arrivals are to be sought for, such as the swallow, martin, sand- 

 martin, the wheatear, the various kinds of warblers among them 

 the nightingale and the blackcap; the cuckoo, swift, nightjar, 

 and so on. 



The males of many species, it should be remarked, arrive 

 first, while in the autumn, strange though it may seem, the young 

 birds of many species leave in bands, before the parents in some 

 species, after them in others. 



Wonderful as this migratory instinct undoubtedly is, and 

 mysterious as is the faculty which guides them so unerringly 

 over trackless wastes of water, it is really yet no more strange 

 than are the migrations of the far less intelligent fishes, such as 

 of the herring and the salmon ; or of the marvellous journeys 

 performed by the young eels, which, hatched in the profound 

 depths of the ocean, yet find their way in the most extraordinary 

 manner to the coasts of the nearest mainland. This goal attained, 

 they seek out, and ascend, the rivers, there to attain maturity, 

 and at last descend to the sea again and lay their eggs and die. 

 No adult eel ever returns, yet their young continue to ascend 

 the streams which their parents but a few months before deserted, 

 unaided save by that elusive faculty which we call instinct ! 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. Howard Saunders, Manual of British Birds (Gurney & Jackson) ; 

 A. Newton, Dictionary of Birds; W. P. Pycraft, The Story of Bird Life (Newnes 

 Useful Library Series) ; W. P. Pycraft, A Book of Birds (Appleton & Co.) ; F. W. 

 Headley, Structure and Life of Birds: E. L. Turner, Home-Life of Marsh Birds 



