266 KEPOBT— 1886. 



have arrived, as the numbers now increased in density ; at the same 

 time all kinds crowded on to the lantern windows, trying to force their 

 way to the light. The noise they made shrieking and battering the 

 windows baffles description. The birds were now apparently in thou- 

 sands ; nothing ever seen here like it by us keepers. Wherever there 

 was a light visible in the building they tried to force their way to it. 

 The bedroom windows being open as usual for air all night, they got in 

 and put the lights out. All birds went off at 6 a.m., going W.S.W. 

 Redwings were most in number ; Starlings next ; Blackbirds, Fieldfares, 

 and Larks.' The rush in November chiefly tof>k place in the night ; at 

 the Bell Rock the movement ceased at midnight of the 12th, and at the 

 Longstone Lighthouse, on the Farn Islands, a little earlier — at 10.30 p.m., 

 when the wind became strong from S.W. 



From each succeeding year's statistics we have come to almost similar 

 conclusions regai-ding the lines of flight — regular and periodically used 

 routes where the migratory hosts are focussed into solid streams. Three 

 salient lines on the east coast of Scotland are invariably shown, viz., 

 (1) by the entrance of the Firth of Forth, and as far north as Bell Rock, 

 both coming in autumn and leaving in spring ; (2) by the Pentland 

 Firth and Pentland Skerries, likewise in spring and autumn; and (3)' 

 by the insular groups of Orkney and Shetland, which perhaps may be 

 looked upon as part of No. 2. On the other hand, three great areas of 

 coast line, including many favourably lighted stations, almost invariably, 

 save in occasionally protracted easterly winds, and even then but rarely, 

 send in no returns, or schedules of the very scantiest description. These 

 areas are Berwickshire, the whole of the east coast south of the Moray 

 Firth, and Caithness and East Sutherland. Each and all of these areas 

 possess high and precipitous coast lines, if we except the minor estuaries 

 of the rivers Tay and Dee, and a small portion of the lower coast line of 

 Sutherland, which face towards the east. 



On the east coast of England these highways are less clearly demon, 

 strated. The Farn Islands, Flamborough Head, and the Spurn are well 

 established points of arrival and departure ; but south of the Humber as 

 far as the South Foreland the stream appears continuous along the whole 

 coast line, and to no single locality can any certain and definite route 

 be assigned. It cannot be said that the southerly flow of autumn 

 migrants is equally distributed along the entire west coast of England. 

 On the contrary, the schedules afford unmistakable evidence that the 

 great majority of these migrants, st far as the English and "Welsh coasts 

 are concerned, are observed at stations south of Anglesey. But while 

 the north-west section of the coast is thus less favoured than the rest,, 

 such is not the case with the Isle of Man, which comes in for an important 

 share of the west coast migratory movement. The fact has already been 

 alluded to, that large masses of immigrants from Southern Europe pass 

 through the Pentland Firth, and, along with migrants from Faroe, 

 Iceland, and Greenland, pass down the west coast of Scotland, whence 

 many cross to Ireland, and it seems most probable that the remainder 

 leave Scotland at some point on the Wigtown coast, and pass by way of 

 the Isle of Man to the west coast of Wales, and thus avoid the English 

 shore of the Irish Sea. The schedules s-ent in from the coasts of Flint,. 

 Cheshire, Lancashire, and Cumberland show that in 1884-85 compara- 

 tively few migrants were observed, and that the great general movement 

 did not affect them in any general degree. These remarks do not apply 



