Ornithological Observations and Reflections in Shetland, ^^j 



also, to explain how mov(>ments that once waited upon 

 instruction, through signal, command or example, do not, 

 now, await anything, but arise spontaneously through a simul- 

 taneous resolve of distinct units that, owing to their numbers, 

 and the space occupied by them, cannot, in the majority of 

 cases, all see, or all hear each other. In short, he must explain 

 how one kind of thing has been ' perfected ' (another word- 

 offering) without essential change, into another and totally 

 different kind of thing. This, of course, is impossible, whilst 

 to hold that such essential change has taken place is simply 

 to leave the whole question open, with the addition of a grat- 

 uitious assumption, without evidence and against sense. As 

 for the sixth definition, ' exact routine,' the sense of instruction 

 seems also, by inference, to be implied here, but, even if other- 

 wise, there is not much help to be got from it, since, if we turn 

 again to our Murray, we find that ' routine ' is : ' A regular 

 course of procedure ; a more or less mechanical or unvarying 

 performance of certain acts or duties.' He, therefore, who 

 explains to us that birds, over a wide space, and numbering 

 thousands, rise with solidarity, or sink a babel of cries into a 

 liush still more striking, by contrast, or tilt, in flight, their 

 multitudinous wings so that, in one second, the whole host is 

 brown, and, the next, a light grey, as the light of the sun falls 

 or ceases to fall upon them, or strikes them at different angles, 

 by exact routine, means, in so far as these words mean any- 

 thing, that they do so because they do so. This, too, is no 

 explanation. 



: o : 



Common Buzzards at Cattal. — Two Common Buzzards 

 have been frequenting the district between Goldsboro' and 

 Cattal for the last week or two, and are there at the time of 

 writing (November ()th). They apparently roost in the 

 Ribstone or Goldsboro' Coverts. The inhabitants in tiie 

 district imagine them to be eagles. — R. Fortune. 



Late Stay of Swifts at Harrogate, — Referring to my 

 note on the above in The Naturalist for November, p. 361, I 

 have to record a still later date. I was again on duty on the 

 Range on Sunday, October 13th, and to my surprise again 

 saw a Swift flying above us, and drawing the attention of 

 my colleague to it, he exclaimed, ' there are two of them,' 

 which proved to be the case. They may have stayed a da}- 

 or two later, but there were no signs of them on the following 

 Sunday. These dates are of course exceptionally late ones 

 and worthy of mention, although they do not constitute a 

 record, for one was seen in this neighbourhood on November 

 i6th, 1901, as recorded in ' The Birds of Yorkshire,' and one 

 is said to have been taken in a dormant state at Bolton Hall, 

 in mid-winter. — R. Fortune. 



1918 Dec 



