70 REPORT— 1887. 



Report of the Gommittee, consisting of Mr. John Cokdeaux (Secre- 

 tary), Professor A. Newton, ]\ir. J. A. Harvie-Brown, Mr. 

 William Eagle Clarke, Mr. E. M. Barrington, and Mr. A. 

 G. More, reappointed at Birmingham for the purpose of 

 obtaining {with the consent of the Master and Brethren of the 

 Trinity House and the Commissioners of Northern and Irish 

 Lights) observations on the Migration of Birds at Lighthouses 

 and Lightvessels, and of reporting on the same. 



The General Report • of the Committee has been printed in a pamphlet 

 of 174 pages, and includes observations from 126 stations out of a total 

 of 198 supplied with schedules, letters of instruction, and cloth-lined 

 envelopes for wings ; altogether 280 schedules have been sent in. In the 

 last report attention was particularly directed to those main highways or 

 lines of migration by which birds approach the east coast of Scotland both 

 in the spring and autumn. Two chief lines seem to be clearly indicated, 

 by the Pentland Firth and Pentland Skerries, also by the entrance of the 

 Firth of Forth as far north as the Bell Rock Lighthouse. Continued 

 observations also indicate that on the east coast of England the stream 

 of migration is not continuous over the whole coast line, but seems to 

 travel along well-estabHshed lines, which are persistently followed year 

 by year. 



On the east coast of England there seems to be a well-marked line, both 

 of entry and return, of the Earn Islands, on the coast of Northumberland, 

 Scarcely second to this in importance is the mouth of the Tees, both in 

 the spring and autumn. The North Yorkshire coast and the elevated 

 moorland district from the south of Redcar to Flamborough, including the 

 north side of the headland, is comparatively barren, few birds appearing to 

 come in. Bridlington Bay and Holdernessto the Spurn and Lincolnshire, 

 as far as Gibraltar Point, on the coast of Lincolnshire, give, perhaps, the 

 best returns on the east coast. The north of Norfolk is poor, but there 

 are indications, in the heavy returns annually sent from the Llynwells, 

 Dudgeon, Leman and Ower, and Happisburgh Lightvessels, that a dense 

 stream pours along the coast from E. to W., probably to pass inland by 

 the estuary of the Wash and the river systems of the Nene and Welland 

 into the centre of England, thence following the line of the Avon valley 

 and the north bank of the Severn and Bristol Channel, and crossing 

 the Irish Sea to enter Ireland at the Tnskar Rock, off the Wexford coast. 

 This is apparently the great and main thoroughfare for birds in transit 

 across England to Ireland in the autumn. Large numbers of migrants 

 also which pass inland from the coasts of Holderness and Lincolnshire 

 may eventually join in with this great western highway by the line of 

 the Trent, avoiding altogether the mountainous districts of Wales. The 

 Norfolk seaboard between Cromer and Yarmouth and the corresponding 

 lightvessels show a large annual immigration, but the returns are much 

 less, and comparatively meagre between Yarmouth and Orfordness. The 

 coast of Essex, with the northern side of the Thames, is fairly good ; but 

 the coast of Kent, between the North and South Forelands, including 



' Report on the Migration of Birds in the Spring and Autumn of 1886. McFar- 

 lane k Erskine, 19 St. James's Square, Edinburgh, price 2s. 



