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with the arrivals on the East Coast. Very few Woodcocks are 
recorded irom the West Coast of England. The notes, however, 
taken from October 8th to 14th, at the Nash East Lighthouse in 
the Bristol Channel, on this species are very interesting. The 
mean time of arrival may be fixed at 3.30 a.m. On the 8th a 
bird, after flying round the light, went off in a south-westerly 
direction. It is fair to presume that these Woodcocks formed 
part of the great flight which we know crossed Heligoland from 
the 12th to the 15th, and are also shown to have arrived on the 
East Coast between October 10th and 16th. Woodcocks migrate 
by night, and probably start on their journey in the dusk of 
evening. Supposing them to have left the coast of Denmark at 
5 p.m., and travelling from north-east to south-west across 
Heligoland, so as to arrive at the Nash light at or about 3.30 a.m., 
the distance traversed would be 550 miles in 103 hours, or about 
52 miles an hour, a rate of progress, from what we know of the 
flight of birds, probably nearly correct. 
An unusual migration of Gulls to the Scotch coasts was 
remarked in 1884, in connection with swarms of sprats or 
*‘ sarvies’’ (Clupea sprattus), following and feeding on myriads of 
minute marine creatures. This aggregation has been attributed, 
and perhaps with reason (though it is a point on which the Com- 
mittee has not sufficient information to decide), to the vast accu- 
mulation of ice west of Spitzbergen in the summer of 1884, and the 
consequent lowering of the temperature of the sea, which cause has 
impelled and driven southward the food-fishes along the course 
of the milder Gulf Stream to the uttermost limits of its possible 
extension, the firths and inlets of the East Coast of Scotland. 
As a rule very few of our rarer immigrants are recorded from 
the East Coast of Scotland. The King Hider was seen off the 
Isle of May on September 24th, and the Black Redstart is 
recorded from the same station and Pentland Skerries. On the 
East Coast of England, besides the Bluethroats, already noticed, 
several rare and casual visitants have been recorded during the 
autumn: two examples of the Barred Warbler, one at Spurn 
Point and another on the Norfolk coast; the Icterine Warbler, 
also on the Norfolk coast; and an Ortolan, likewise from the 
same locality. The Lapland Bunting, in Lincolnshire and 
Norfolk ; Tengmalm’s Owl, in Holderness ; and a Rose-coloured 
Starling, near Spurn. 
