(Authors are responsible for notttettclaiure used.) /'^■^■O <^'- ^- , 



_i t I BR A R Yi2oi 



The Scottish Naturali§t*/^ 



Nos. 129 AND 130.] 1922 [Sept.-Oct. 



With the utmost regret we record, on the 23rd October, as we 

 go to press, the death of Mr William Evans. 



THE GREAT WAXWING INVASION OF 1921. 

 By James Ritchie, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S.E. 



The Waxwing, Ampelis garrulus, is no new nor rare visitor 

 to our shores. Scarcely a winter passes but one or more is 

 observed in the eastern parts of Britain, and occasionally 

 the numbers indicate a very considerable immigration. But 

 never has Scotland witnessed so great or widespread an 

 invasion as that which occurred in the late autumn of 1921. 

 The immediate cause of Scotland's great share in this 

 immigration was, as I shall show later, due in the first place 

 to lack of food-supply in Norway, and in the second place to 

 well-defined weather conditions ; for although invasions of 

 vast extent have been recorded in former years in Britain, 

 the main body of the army has, as a rule, landed upon the 

 eastern coast of England. 



Of all the invasions of the past, and they have occurred 

 at an average interval of between ten and eleven years in 

 recent times — 1834-5, 1849-50, 1866-7, 1872-3, 1892-3, 1901-2, 

 1903-4, 1913-14, and 1921-2 — perhaps none could compare 

 in point of numbers with that of 1849-50, when "upwards 

 of thirty successive notices of specimens obtained appeared 

 in The Zoologist, and though even these conveyed but a 

 very small idea of the numbers that actually visited us, 

 they amounted to five Jmndred and eighty-six birds killed" 

 (Dresser: Birds of Europe, vol. iii., p. 432). Fortunately, no 

 such slaughter has greeted the present invaders ; but it is 

 possible that the 192 1 immigration has been even more 

 129 AND 130 R 



