Migration in the Northern Shires. 275 



Grimsby; in the district of the Wash the poor little 

 birds came on to the coast in a more or less ex- 

 hausted condition three or four days later, many 

 migrating at night. One favourite line of migration 

 into inland districts of the northern shires, not only 

 of this species, but of Titmice, Chaffinches, Bramb- 

 lings, and some others, is along the H umber, and 

 down the valley of the Don, which brings them into 

 the coppices and fields of South Yorkshire and 

 North Derbyshire. We have upon many occasions, 

 during the twenty years or so that we resided in 

 Sheffield, met with these waves of migrant Gold- 

 crests and Titmice in the birch and alder coppices of 

 the Rivelin Valley. This district, as the crow flies, 

 is sixty miles from Spurn, at the mouth of the 

 H umber, and about thirty miles from the head of 

 that vast estuary, with an abundance of suitable 

 haunts by the way. Yet this vast tract of interven- 

 ing country has not absorbed the waves of birds, 

 and we have found them literally swarming in these 

 Rivelin coppices during October. It is also some- 

 what remarkable how confined these waves of birds 

 in many cases are. For instance, we never met 

 with these birds in numbers at all indicating a strong 

 migration anywhere beyond the somewhat narrow 

 limits of this rock-girdled valley. To have reached 

 it the birds must absolutely have passed over 

 Sheffield in incredible numbers; they also appeared 



