144 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



were not necessarily driven tliere by unusual winds, but were 

 birds passing from their summer quarters at some locality 

 farther to the north and east of their usual limit on a regular 

 migration. Such of the black redstarts, therefore, that 

 reach Scotland may, it is true, in so far be considered 

 accidental, that they may have overshot their turning-point 

 or usual iiorth-iucst limit on migration, which turning-point 

 would appear, in the case of many other species, to be some- 

 where in the neighbourhood of Heligoland. That such a 

 turning-point does exist there would seem to be good reason 

 to believe, for how otherwise can we account for species 

 which breed far to the east in Siberia or North-East Eussia, 

 and winter nowhere in Europe or Africa (the above-named 

 Phylloscopi, for instance), how can we otherwise account for 

 their almost regular appearance in that one little spot of 

 some 150 acres, viz., Heligoland, and nowhere else in Europe? 

 I will not pursue this subject here further, but I think I have 

 shown some reason for not always considering the occurrences 

 of Continental species in Scotland as jpiirely accidental, but 

 rather, as before stated, as indications of a gradual northerly 

 extension on the Continent of their breeding range, and as 

 resulting from a natural law and a regular migration. 

 Ornithologists are now looking forward with some expectancy 

 to the clearing up of much that has hitherto been mysterious 

 in the matter of migration, and many believe, myself 

 amongst the number, that a key will ere long be found in the 

 fauna of this curious, isolated fragment of Europe, above 

 mentioned, as elucidated by the able hand of its native natural- 

 ist, Herr Gaetke. 



III. Notes on the Ornithology of Ycdo. By Colin A. M'Vean, 

 Esq. Communicated by the Secretary. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



I purpose giving in this paper a short account of the birds 

 observed by myself frequenting Yedo, the capital of Japan. 

 During a residence of some years in that city I was much 

 struck with the extraordinary number of birds of various 



