THE GREAT WAXWING INVASION OF 1 92 I 137 



23rd), and Silloth (22nd), on the borders of Shropshire and 

 Montgomeryshire (21st), and in Hereford (22nd). 



It is significant as regards the general westward dispersal 

 that the last Scottish counties from which records were 

 received were Ayrshire (30th November), Lanarkshire (8th 

 December)/ and Argyllshire (mid-January). 



In all, twenty-seven Scottish counties were visited by 

 Waxwings during the invasion, ranging from Shetland to 

 the Solway and from the east coast to the Outer Hebrides. 

 The only counties from which records have not been received 

 are Nairn, Kinross, Clackmannan, Linlithgow, Kirkcudbright, 

 and Bute ; and the fact that the majority of these are in 

 the neighbourhood of well-visited areas points rather to lack 

 of recorders than to the absence of migrants. Apart from 

 its wide range, the most striking feature of the invasion was 

 its westerly dispersal, for although records of Waxwings from 

 the western parts of Scotland are rare, the movements of the 

 birds carried them on this occasion to the west coast or its 

 neighbourhood, in the Outer Hebrides, Ross, Inverness-shire, 

 Argyll, Dumbartonshire, Ayrshire, and Wigtownshire. This 

 unusual westerly extension may be accounted for by the 

 direction in which the migrants struck the British Isles and 

 by the large numbers of birds involved. 



In England also, although the number of birds was much 

 smaller, the area visited was very wide, ranging from 

 Northumberland and Cumberland on the northern borders 

 to Surrey and Devon, and from the east coast, as far south as 

 Suffolk, to the western counties of Lancashire, Shropshire, 

 and Hereford. 



The Ditration of Actual Iimnigration. — How long did the 

 arrival of Waxwings continue ? Did the birds arrive 

 suddenly in a more or less compact body, which afterwards 

 spread from the points of landing in different directions, thus 

 affording the material for later locality-records ; or was the 

 immigration a long drawn-out process, spreading over days 

 or weeks? The successional appearance of birds at different 

 parts of the coast gives only a somewhat vague answer to the 



^ Excluding an early record on 15th November from a northern 

 projection of the county lying on the Kelvin Valley route. 



