512 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
SPRING MIGRATION OF BIRDS ON THE EAST COAST. 
By Joun CorDEAUX. 
Mr. Gatke, writing from Heligoland, February 8th, says, “Sky 
Larks for about five days commenced going eastward, and so did 
a few Blackbirds. If open weather continues the Pied Wagtail 
and Stonechat will be the harbingers of the approaching spring.” 
With us in North-East Lincolnshire Blackbirds and Thrushes were 
in full song by the 14th of February, and building. The first 
Stonechat appeared on the 24th;* wind S.W. and strong. Up to 
the 25th the weather was remarkably fine and open—showers and 
warm sunny days like April. On the 26th there was a very sudden 
change to frost and snow. On the night of the 27th the thermo- 
meter registered 15° of frost. 
Pied Wagtails did not arrive in any numbers previous to the 
22nd March, coming in small companies, quickly moving forward, 
and others taking their place. By this date all appeared to have 
assumed the black chin and throat. On the 23rd there were 
enormous flocks of Golden Plovers, Fieldfares, and some Hooded 
Crows in the Humber marshes, evidently congregating for a general 
move northward. On the same day I was pleased to see a pair of 
the common Pochard, Fuligula ferina (Linn.), on a sheet of artificial 
water in this neighbourhood—a place, from its being closely pre- 
served, admirably adapted for a nesting haunt. On the 26th I saw 
as many as a dozen Hooded Crows together feeding on fish-offal 
close to the town of Grimsby; a few, however, lingered about the 
marshes a month later, till the 26th April, on which day I surprised 
three on the carcase of a dead sheep, so gorged that they could 
barely rise from their putrid feast. 
On the 27th March we found the first nest of the Long-eared 
Owl, with five eggs. The Owls had utilized an old Magpie’s nest 
in a larch; the dome was removed and the platform covered with 
straw. Last season, when occupied by the Magpies, it had been 
lined, as is invariably the case, with very fine roots. 
* I have strong reasons for supposing that the particular line of migration of 
the Stonechat is one across the usual routes of birds moving north and south, 
and that in the early spring months those of this species arriving on our eastern 
seaboard come from the continent of Europe, almost directly east and west across 
the North Sea. See a paper, ‘On the Migration of the Stonechat,” in the 
‘Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society’ for 1877, p. 264. 
