ON THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 283 



Report of the Committee, consisting of Mr. John Cordeaux, ]\lr. 

 J. A. Harvie-Brown, Professor Newton, Mr. E. M. Barrington, 

 Mr. A. Gr. More, Mr. T. Hardy, and Mr. P. M. C. Kermode, 

 appointed for the purpose of obtaining (tuith the consent 

 of the blaster and Brethren of the Trinity House, and of the 

 Commissioners of Northern Lights) observations on the Migration 

 of Birds at Lighthouses and Lightships, and of reporting on 

 the same. 



The General Report,' which comprises observations taken at all the chief 

 stations on the east and west coasts of England and Scotland, the coasts 

 of Ireland, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Orkney and Shetland Isles, the 

 Faroes, Iceland, and Heligoland, has been unavoidably delayed in printing. 

 It will probably form a pamphlet of not less than 130 pages. 



With respect to the east and west coasts of England and Scotland 

 your Committee has again to report favourably of the observations 

 made along our shore-lines, and at the various lighthouse and light- 

 vessel stations, upon the migration of birds. In the northern parts of 

 these coasts the prevailing winds were westerly to north-westerly, but 

 from the entrance of the Firth of Forth southward easterly winds pre- 

 vailed. The south-east wind which brought over vast numbers of birds 

 as recorded at Isle of May and along the English coast, was also felfc 

 locally at Pentland Skerries — a much more northern station, and there 

 also numbers of birds were observed. The wave of migration this 

 season has been wide-spread upon the greater portions of our east coast- 

 line, but north of the Firth of Forth has been much more limited, more 

 compressed and normal. The general direction has been as before, from 

 E. to W., or S.E. to N.W". The greatest numerical returns on the east 

 coast of Scotland were from Isle of May, and the next greatest from Bell 

 Rock. North of the latter birds are reported much scarcer ; whilst 

 south of the former there has been a broad stream covering the whole of 

 our east English coast in comparatively equal proportions, and without 

 great throbs or 'rushes.' 



In spring the lines of migration are the same, the birds, however, 

 travelling from N.W. and W. to E. and S.E.^ The points at which birds 

 during the .spring migration have hitherto been observed to leave the 

 land, are situated in Forfarshire, on its south-east or east coast, and 

 between that point and the Bell Rock, in Scotland, and at Spurn Point 

 on the English coast. 



Further north as yet, we have no great mass of statistics to indicate 

 any other points of departure of spring migrants.^ 



' Beport on the Migration of Birds in the Spring and Autumn of 1881. West, 

 Newman & Co., 5-t Hatton Garden, London, E.G. 



_ "_ The line of migration followed by the Grey Plover, Knot, and Bar-tailed God- 

 wit in the spring is suggestive of an ancient coast-line which towards the end, or 

 perhaps subsequent to the last glacial epoch, swept east or north-eastward from 

 Holdemess to Southern Scandinavia and the mouth of the Baltic. It is a striking 

 fact, as mentioned by Mr. T. E. Mortimer in a paper read before the British Asso"- 

 ciation at York, 1881, that chalk boulders south of Hornsea contain black flints, which 

 are never found in the Yorkshire chalk, and which must have come from Norway .- 

 the flints north of Hornsea are more of the Yorkshire type, and were probably derived 

 from Flamborough Head. 



' The Aberdeenshire coast has sent in no returns, and we cannot help thinking 



