138 BRITISH BIRDS. 



to be visible to the naked eye, then, from 6 to 8 a.m. 

 any day during September, there ought to have been 

 a constant stream of birds, of perhaps thirty different 

 species, flying past the ship. But there was not. 



Even Quail, which habitually make the land only 

 a few feet above the water's surface, did not seem to 

 have crossed the Mediterranean in this fashion. At 

 three miles from the land a good many Quail did pass 

 the ship, flying past her at their business-like fifty miles 

 an hour, taking no notice of the ship at all ; these birds 

 were travelling under normal conditions and knew where 

 their goal was perfectly well. (The tops of the houses 

 would have been visible to a bird flying just above the 

 water's surface from a distance of about twelve miles.) 



At fifteen miles or more from land, whether in Egyptian 

 or other Mediterranean waters, we never found this 

 state of affairs ; on the contrary, Quail were remarkable 

 by their absence. At 2 p.m. on September 17th, 1907, 

 in clear weather, a Quail came flying round the ship, and 

 eventually went away to the northward, absolutely lost, 

 in spite of the fact that Malta was only twelve miles to 

 the southward. 



I feel no hesitation, therefore, in saying that in the 

 Mediterranean, when birds are seen at sea outside of a 

 very few miles from the coast, their appearance is due 

 to abnormal causes ; they have lost their way, and see 

 something to break the monotonous expanse of water, 

 so fly towards it ; they are exhausted and must needs 

 rest at all cost or drop into the sea ; they cannot face 

 the head-wind that has suddenly sprung up and are loath 

 to turn back, and doubtless many other such reasons 

 force them to the ship. 



In short, there is nothing whatever in the migratory 

 passage across the Mediterranean, considering that sea 

 as a whole, to correspond to the low altitude, and 

 consequently visible passage, of certain species across 

 the North Sea, for instance, as is graphically described 

 by Mr. Eagle Clarke in the " Ibis " for January, 1904. 



