688 REPORT—1885. 
crossed Heligoland from the 12th to the 15th, and are also shown to have 
arrived on the east coast between October 10 and 16. 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 the correct 
one. A large majority of the various birds which strike the lanterns of 
west coast lighthouses do so between midnight and daybreak, which is 
suggestive of a continuous and uninterrupted flight across the North Sea 
and the breadth of England. 
An unusually extensive migration of gulls to the Scotch coasts was 
remarked in 1884, in connection with the vast swarms of sprats or 
‘ garvies ’ (Clupea sprattus), themselves following and feeding on countless 
myriads of minute marine creatures. This aggregation has been attri- 
buted, and perhaps with reason (though it is a point on which the Com- 
mittee has not sufficient information to decide), to the vast accumulation 
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 fish food 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-eider was seen off the Isle of May on 
September 24, and the black redstart is recorded from the same station 
and Pentland Skerries. On the east coast of England, besides the blue- 
throats, 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. 
On the west coast of England the report embraces notes on some rare 
and interesting species, including the white wagtail, Pallas’s grey shrike, 
waxwing, Cassin’s snow-goose, garganey teal, red-necked phalarope, 
ruff, black tern; whilst the scarcity or entire absence of the tree 
sparrow, hooded crow, and brent goose, and the presence of the bernacle 
goose, are of interest to one accustomed to east-coast observations. The 
capture, too, of eight storm-petrels at the South Bishop, on October 14, 
is a noteworthy incident. The lanterns vary not a little in their death- 
dealing attractions, those of the Bardsey, South Bishop, Smalls, Nash (E), 
Godrevy, and Eddystone lighthouses being most seductive, occasionally 
vommanding no less than two hundred victims in a single night. 
From the Irish coasts it is reported that in 1884 the number of birds 
was equal to, and in a few instances above, the average. 
The great bulk of migrants arrive on the southern half of the east 
coast of Ireland, and on the easternmost of the southern counties—in 
other words, along the shore extending from Dublin to Waterford, 
and having its limits at Rockabill Lighthouse and Dungarvan Lighthouse. 
A marked migratory movement might be expected in the north- 
eastern counties between Scotland and Ireland, where the Irish Channel 
is narrowest ; but we do not find such to be the case. 
