134 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



extensive than that of 1849, for in the pages that follow I 

 shall endeavour to summarise a series of some 137 different 

 records received from Scotland alone, to which may be added 

 36 English records gathered from various sources. The sum 

 total of Waxwings referred to in these records exceeds 11 00. 



Many correspondents have shared in making these 

 statistics the most complete that have ever been collected 

 in this country relating to a single Waxwing immigration, 

 and this willing assistance I most gratefully acknowledge. 



Normal Annual Movements. — In order that the significance 

 of the recent incursion may be more readily understood, it 

 may be stated that the Waxwing, although not a local 

 migrant, is a migrant with a somewhat limited range of 

 movement. In early spring it moves northwards to its 

 breeding-haunts in the Arctic regions, where, in Europe, it 

 nests in the pine-woods of the extreme north of Scandinavia, 

 Finland, and Russia. The breeding season over, a southward 

 migration takes place in autumn, and this movement seldom 

 extends beyond Central Europe, the general southern limit 

 ranging from Denmark through northern Prussia. Stragglers 

 may occur in northern Italy, in Holland and Belgium, as 

 well as in Britain, but these countries lie beyond the normal 

 annual range of the mass of Waxwings. 



Earliest Arrivals in Britain in 1921. — Dr Eagle Clarke 

 states {^Studies in Bird Migration, p. 158) that November, 

 December, and January may be regarded as the months 

 during which Waxwings generally appear in Britain, and 

 he gives 9th October as an "early record." In 1921, how- 

 ever, exceptionally early arrivals were noted on the coast 

 near Dartmouth — two individuals on 25th September, and 

 perhaps the same birds on i6th and 17th October, in the 

 same neighbourhood.^ Here both time and place are 

 unusual, and this occurrence clearly did not belong to the 

 mass invasion, although it may indicate conditions of unusual 

 severity in the region whence the birds came. 



The general invasion began about lOth November, but 

 it is a curious fact that the first Waxwings were seen at places 

 away from the east coast, in two cases in western counties from 

 1 British Birds., December 192 1, p. 155. 



