364 KEPORT— 1901. 



Bird Migration in Great Britain and Ireland. — Fourth Interim Beport 

 of ike Committee, consisting of Professor Newton (Chairman), 

 Rev. E. P. Knubley {Secretary), Mr. John A. Harvie-Brown, 

 Mr. R. M. Barrington, and Mr. A. H. Evans, appointed to tvork 

 Old the details of the Observations of Migration of Birds at Light- 

 houses and Lightships, 1880-87. 



Your Committee has again great pleasure in reporting that Mr. William 

 Eagle Clarke has been continuing his invaluable services, and the sub- 

 joined statement received from him, together with a Summary of Observa- 

 tions in reference to the Migrations of the Skylark (Alauda arvensis) and 

 the Swallow {Iliricndo rustica) — the former being of an extremely com- 

 plicated nature — shows the i-esults of an enormous amount of labour, 

 wrought out with proportionate skill, of which your Committee desires 

 to express its most grateful admiration. 



A serious deficiency of data in regard to the migrations of some other 

 species oq the south coast of England has become apparent, and, at the 

 suggestion of Mr. Clarke, application was made to the authorities of the 

 Trinity House to permit a renewal of observations at the Lighthouses and 

 Lightships along that coast. The consent of the Elder Brethren having 

 been most courteously given, and the cost defrayed from private souioes, 

 the necessary schedules have been forwarded to the several stations. 

 Your Committee is aware that in thus acting it may have exceeded its 

 duties according to the strict terms of its appointment, but trusts that, in 

 the circumstances, the transgression (if it be so regarded) will be pardoned, 

 ■eeing that its object was to supply a void left through inadvertence by 

 the older Migration of Birds Committee ; that it introduced no new 

 principle ; and, moreover, that otherwise a whole year would have been 

 lost. 



On two previous occasions your Committee has referred to the private 

 labours of one of its members (Mr. Barrington) in i-egard to observations 

 at the Irish Lights. These have now been published in extenso, forming 

 a volume ' which is perhaps the most monumental contribution to the 

 literature of Bii-d Migration ever issued ; while its appendix, giving the 

 precise wing-measurements of so many specimens, is, apart from the subject 

 it especially illustrates, a matter of importance for the student of varia- 

 tion. Thanks, too, to that gentleman's exertions, the work has the 

 additional merit of containing the results of ten years more than the 

 period covered by the inquiry carried on by the Association's fo^-mer 

 Committee ; a fact v/hich enormously enhances the value of the Irish 

 records. 



Without pledging itself to a positive assurance in the matter, your 

 Committee hopes that, if reappointed, as it desires to be, it will, in the 

 course of two years more, bring to a conclusion the work with which it 

 has been charged, so far as being able to give a summary of the movements 



' The Migration of Birds as observed at Irish Lighthouses and Lightships, includ- 

 ing the original Reports from 1888-97, now published for the first time, and an 

 analysis of them and of the previously published Reports from 1881-87, together with 

 an appendix giving the measurements of about 1,600 wings. By Richard M. Barring- 

 ton, M.A., LL.B., F.L.S. London and Dublin : [1890] (pp. ssvi + 285 + 667). 



