H. LYNES: MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 143 



At seven o'clock on the morning of April 29th, 1906, 

 the " Venus " left Suda Bay, Crete, bound for Malta. 

 There was little or no wind, the sun was shining brightly, 

 with a few clouds here and there, the sea calm, with the 

 remains of a north-westerly swell, probably the result of 

 a recent "bora " in the Adriatic, as there had been no strong 

 wind at Crete, and we subsequently had a calm passage 

 the whole way to Malta. 



In the middle of the afternoon we fell in with several 

 short heavy showers, and it was evident from the nimbus 

 clouds at several points of the horizon that there were 

 local thunder-showers all around us, which equally 

 obviously had an all-important bearing upon a tremendous 

 visitation of migrants on board the ship. At 3.30 p.m. 

 (this was just after our first shower) a Wood-Wren, 

 in beautiful plumage, came aboard, very tired, but did 

 not actually look wet. I tried to catch it in a butterfly 

 net, but missed, and I am afraid the poor little creature 

 dropped astern and perished. Then four Bee-Eaters 

 appeared — also very tired — and settled in the fore 

 rigging, and a female Wheatear flew around the ship. 



At 4.30, when the ship was fifty miles from the west 

 end of Crete and forty miles south of Cape Matapan, 

 making about eleven knots to the westward* there 

 commenced a regular rush of migrants. Some Yellow- 

 bellied Wagtails, a Redstart, a Turtle-Do ve, and a Whin- 

 chat appeared ; the latter settled aft, the Wagtails were 

 shyer and only followed in the wake of the ship, uttering 

 vibrating chirps, the others flew around the ship. 



After this my observations were entirely confined to 

 what was going on right aft on the quarterdeck, but we 

 heard afterwards that there were also many birds forward, 

 and, indeed, all over the ship. 



At five o'clock two more Wood- Wrens came on board, 

 and a party of seven Yellow-bellied Wagtails, which 

 paddled nimbly about the quarterdeck searching for 

 flies, which, unfortunately, did not exist. 



* See Figure VI. 



