4090 The Zoologist — August, 1874. 



a scanty remnant are to be met with. With this same ebb the autumnal 

 mouths bring to our sight again strings of grallatorial and natatorial birds, 

 urged by similar causes from the northern regions back towards the south 

 in search of that food and aquatic life which the icy hand of winter had 

 ah'eady begun to grudge them and their progeny in their summer location. 

 To follow the sun appears to be the course of true migration; but the 

 promptings of instinct which lead the swallow and many other species to 

 quit our shores, after a brief sojourn, for Africa, or those which lead the 

 fieldfare and the redwing to quit the Norwegian 'fjelds' for our cultivated 

 lands, must surely be connected in some way with, if they have not for their 

 sole object, the provision of food and climate suitable to the species." — P. 3. 



Mr. Gould has some very truthful aud appropriate observations 

 on the difference in punctuality between immigration and emigra- 

 tion, the regularity of arrivals manifestly exceeding that of de- 

 partures; but I cannot find that he throws any additional light on 

 this most interesting subject, and it is well worlli deep aud attentive 

 study: it is a matter of constant astonishment to me that ornitho- 

 logists devote so much thought, ingenuity and research to the 

 changing of a Latin name, and so little, so infinitesimally small a 

 portion of either, to observing the habits and actions of the living 

 bird. This taste or fashion now prevails to such an extent that 

 the use of scientific names must inevitably be abandoned altogether 

 before many years have passed over our heads, and each country 

 must adopt its own vernacular names, and thus shut itself up in a 

 mantle, so to speak, of its own ignorance. But let us proceed to 

 Mr. Gould's exposition of the facts of partial migration. 



" Besides the regular migration of certain species, a remarkable shifting 

 of locality occurs with others, not only in our own, but in many other parts 

 of the world, the cause of which is totally unknown. Starlings are now very 

 abundant in Cornwall, and missel thrushes in Scotland — in which they 

 were formerly not to be seen. Such interchanges of locality are doubtless 

 occasionally due to alterations in the face of the country : but this was not 

 the cause in the case of Cornwall ; for no county can have uudergone less 

 alteration ; as it was in the days of Julius Caesar so it is now, unless we 

 except the operations of mining, which naturally only affect the surface of a 

 district to a small extent. The sudden appearance of Pallas 's sand grouse 

 [Synhajites j)ai'cidoxus) in our islands and on various parts of the Continent, 

 in 1859 — 60, must be in the recollection of every one.' This irruption of 

 a strange bird from the distant country of Siberia, perhaps from China, was 

 very astonishing ; and it well illustrates my meaning, which may be further 

 exemplified by the mention of two similar occurrences in Australia. In the 



