Migration in the Northern Shires. 281 



flashing brilliant lamps, crowd round the lanterns, 

 and many of them not only kill themselves by dash- 

 ing against the glass but are observed to fall ex- 

 hausted into the sea below. Birds of many species 

 compose these lost and bewildered flocks. Adversity 

 makes strange companions, as the old saying has it, 

 and never perhaps was it better illustrated than by 

 a crowd of birds at the lantern of a lighthouse. 

 Significantly enough, the return passage in spring is 

 invariably undertaken by numbers scarcely a tithe as 

 great as in autumn the bulk of the little pilgrims 

 having met their fate either on passage or during 

 the intervening winter. 



In the northern shires birds of some species or 

 another are almost constantly moving about through- 

 out the winter months. Even in inland localities 

 this fact is abundantly apparent to the most casual 

 observer of birds. Rough weather and snow-storms 

 are almost invariably accompanied or heralded by 

 wandering flocks of Lapwings and Larks; Finches 

 and Fieldfares are constantly moving about as the 

 food supply becomes exhausted or inaccessible in 

 various districts ; Ducks and other water-fowl change 

 their haunts as frost compels them. We might also 

 here allude to the considerable amount of vertical 

 migration that takes place in the northern shires 

 that movement between the uplands and the low- 

 lying country and littoral districts, undertaken by 



