146 BRITISH BIRDS. 



I have noticed in dissecting some dozen birds which 

 have died of exhaustion on board ship that in all cases the 

 internal organs were shrunken, dry and dark coloured, 

 the intestines being an almost black-coloured sticky 

 pulp. 



Although we did not pay special attention to it at the 

 time, it seemed that the birds came from no particular 

 direction, except perhaps that most were first seen beating 

 up astern, i.e., from the eastward. It is to be regretted 

 that we did not follow more closely the departure of 

 our visitors, but I think that all except the most exhausted 

 birds pursued their journey before ten o'clock that night 

 (when the ship was about seventy miles south-west of 

 Cape Matapan), as the following morning none were visible, 

 except those which had succumbed to fatigue or exposure 

 during the night, and were picked up in various places 

 about the boats and decks in the morning. 



The following day the weather was quite fine and dry ; 

 no birds came on board, except a stray Yellow-bellied 

 Wagtail, which followed the ship, flying wildly around 

 for about ten minutes, and then went off to the north- 

 eastward, and a little later a Turtle-Dove, which did the 

 same and then went off to the north-westward. Both 

 these birds had evidently quite lost their bearings. 



Now, what were the reasons for this great visitation of 

 migrants to the ship and for their exhaustion ? A glance 

 at Figure VI. shows that we were about one hundred and 

 eighty miles from the nearest land south, the coast of 

 Barca ; about sixty miles south-south-west of Cape 

 Matapan, and forty-five to ninety west of Crete. 



It seems obvious that these birds can have had no 

 connection with Crete as a starting point, as there was no 

 reason to account for their being so much out of their 

 course ; neither does the suggestion that they had been 

 blown over from the westward hold any weight, since there 

 had been no wind during the past twenty-four hours, 

 besides which immediately to the westward of us lay an 

 area of little or no migration passage (zone IV.), separating 



