190 EEPORT 1881. 



from isolated stations, at lighthouses on islands and skerries off the 

 coast, as well as from the lightvessels. Lighthouses situated some 

 distance inland, or surrounded by houses, make few returns, or none. 



In presenting their report, your Committee are aware that the 

 inquiry is as yet in its infancy. Their work, so far, has been mainly to 

 collect and tabulate sufficient data, from which they have every reason 

 to expect that, at some future time, reliable facts may be deduced on the 

 migratory movements of birds in their spring and autumn migrations. 

 The results of the observations taken so far, in 1879 and 1880, have 

 proved so satisfactory and unexpected that the Committee have been able, 

 with tolerable certainty, to arrive at the following conclusions : — 



On the east coasts of England and Scotland, as in 1879, the main 

 line of migration has been a broad stream from east to west, covering 

 the whole of the English and Scotch east-coast ; this is the line mainly 

 followed by the Passeres. Taking this line as a basis, we find birds 

 also occasionally coming from points north of east, but, in the vast 

 majority of instances, the migration has had a decidedly southerly trend, 

 coming from points south of east, and even direct from the southward. 

 In 1879 the main body of immigrants crossed at the most southern 

 stations, at the narrowest parts of the North Sea, and direct into our 

 south-eastern counties ; in 1880 the main body has been tolerably 

 equally divided between the mid and south-eastern counties. During 

 the principal month of migration, October, the wind blew persistently, 

 day by day and week by week, from northei'ly and north-easterly 

 quarters, and to this cause we may fairly attribute, to some extent, the 

 deflection of migrants to the south ; on the north-east coast of England 

 and the stations on the east-coast of Scotland birds are reported as 

 comparatively scarce, and in some instances absent altogether. 

 A reference to the meteorological charts in the ' Times ' shows that, in 

 the autumn of 1880, the prevailing winds and gales were from the east 

 and north-east, and while these winds do not appear to have compressed 

 the horizontal lines so much as the north-westerly did, in 1879, the birds 

 appear to have passed at greater elevations and, in many cases, to have 

 been borne far to the westward of these islands. The migration does not 

 appear to have come in such great throbs or ' rushes ' in 1880 as in 1879, 

 but to have been more dispersed and more regular ; this, no doubt, is a 

 natural consequence of the waves being more spread out in 1880 than in 

 1879. 



Independent of the broad stream of immigrants coming directly 

 from the east, there is, in the autumn, always a steady stream of 

 migrants which closely follow the coast-line from north to south, 

 composed of birds either moving from more northerly districts of our 

 islands, or of such immigrants coming from the east as strike the coast 

 in more northern latitudes, and then follow it to the south. The great 

 E. to W. stream of migration is mainly composed of some few 

 well-known species, which regularly come to us in the autumn, the great 

 body undoubtedly remaining to winter. Placed in order of rotation, 

 according to their numerical superiority or otherwise, we find the Skylark, 

 Starling, Hooded Grow and Book, the Song Thrusli, Blackbird, Fieldfare 

 and Redwing ; and then Sparrows (both the common species and tree- 

 sparrow), and Linnets, and Chaffinches compose the bulk of the immigrants. 

 Others, as the Redstart, Wheatear, Whinchat and Stonechat, and other 

 soft-billed insect-eaters, although coming from the eastward, after striking 



