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OBSERVATIONS ON THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS 

 IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. 



BY 

 COMMANDER H. LYNES, R.N., M.B.O.U. 



(Continued from page 77.) 



II. SPRING MIGRATION AT CRETE. 



Crete, perhaps the least known ornithologically of the 

 large Mediterranean Islands, appears, as might be 

 expected from its proximity to that country, to agree 

 very closely in its avifauna with Greece. 



In the winter time, in common with the other Mediter- 

 ranean Islands to the westward, the bird-life is decidedly 

 scanty ; while in summer, judging from the influx of 

 migratory visitors from the south up to the date of our 

 departure on the 29th April, the bird-life seems to be 

 much a counterpart of that met with in the rocky 

 country around Platea, near the Gulf of Arta. 



From its geographical position, and knowing that 

 Greece in summer is populated with individuals of many 

 species of birds that winter in Africa, it will be readily 

 inferred that Crete is a migratory highway between the 

 two regions, acting as a stepping-stone to birds from 

 the southward, and enabling them to shorten their 

 over-sea journey by some eighty miles, a diminution 

 which can hardly fail to be welcome. 



The only difficulty in such an inference seems to be 

 the point of departure on the North African coast from 

 which the influx might be expected. 



Considering the physical features of the strip of 

 country from Alexandria to Tripoli lying between the 

 Sahara and the Mediterranean, it seems out of the 

 question that as a winter base it can provide any but 

 a minute proportion of the migrants that pass through 

 Crete in spring. Furthermore, the majority of the 

 Cretan migrants observed on the present occasion during 



