790 KEPOET — 1893. 



As to the time of migratiou, the earliest notes of field naturalists have been the 

 records of the dates of arrival of the feathered visitors. We possess them for 

 some localities, as for Norfolk by the Marsham family, so far back as 1736. In 

 recent years these observations have been carried out on a larger and more 

 systematic scale by 3Iiddendorff, who, forty years ago, devoted himself to the 

 study of the lines of migration in the Russian Empire, tracing what he called the 

 isopipteses, the lines of simidtaneous arrival of particular species ; and by Professor 

 Palmc^n, of Finland, who, twenty years later, pursued a similar course of investiga- 

 tion ; by Professor Baird on the migration of North American birds ; and sub- 

 sequently by Severtzofl' as regards Central Asia, and Meuzbier as regards Eastern 

 Europe. As respects our own coasts, a vast mass of statistics has been collected 

 by the labours of the Migration Committee appointed by the British Association 

 in 1880, for which our thanks are due to the indefatigable zeal of Mr. John 

 Cordeaux, and his colleague Mr. John Harvie Brown, the originators of the scheme 

 by which the lighthouses were for nine years used as posts of observation on 

 migration. The reports of that Committee are familiar to us, but the inferences 

 are not yet worked out. I cannot but regret that the Committee has been allowed 

 to drop. Professor W. W. Cooke has been carrying on similar observations in the 

 Mississippi valley, and others, too numerous to mention, have done the same else- 

 where. But, as Professor Newton has truly said, All these etibrts may be said to 

 pale before the stupendous amount of information amassed during more than tifty 

 years by the venerable Herr Giitke of Heligoland, whose work we earnestly 

 desire may soon appear in an English version. 



We have, through the labours of the writers I have named, and many others, 

 arrived at a fair knowledge of the When ? of migi-ation. Of the How P "we have 

 ascertained a little, but very little. The lines of migration vary widely in different 

 species, and in ditlerent longitudes. The theory of migration being directed 

 towards the magnetic pole, first started by Middendorfl", seems to be refuted by 

 Baird, who has shown that in North America the theory will not hold. Yet, in 

 some instances, there is evidently a converging tendency in northward migrations. 

 The fine, according to Middendorff, in Middle Siberia is due north, in Eastern 

 Siberia S.E. to N.W., and in Western Siberia from S.W. to N.E. In European 

 Russia Menzbier traces four northward routes: (1) A coast line coming up from 

 Norway round the North Cape to Nova Zembla. {2) The Baltic line with bifur- 

 cation, one proceeding by the Gulf of Bothnia, and the other by the Gulf of Finland, 

 which is afterwards again subdivided. (3) A Black Sea line, reaching nearly 

 as far north as the valley of the Petchora. (4) The Caspian line, passing up the 

 Volga and reaching as far east as the valley of the Obi by other anastomosing 

 streams. 



Palm^n has endeavoured to trace the lines of migration on the return autumnal 

 journey in the eastern hemisphere, and has arranged them in nine routes: 

 (1) From Nova Zembla, round the west of Norway, to the British Isles. (2) From 

 Spitzbergen, by Norway, to Britain, France, Portugal, and West Africa. 

 (3) From North Russia, by the Gulf of Finland, Holstein, and Holland, and then 

 bifurcating to the west coast of France on the one side, and on the other up 

 the Rhine to Italy and North Africa. (4 a) Down the Volga by the Sea of Azof, 

 Asia Minor, and Egypt, while the other portion (4 b), trending east, passes by 

 the Caspian and Tigris to the Persian Gulf. (5) By the Yenesei to Lake Baika"li 

 and Slongolia. (6) By the Lena on to the Amoor and Japan. (7) From East 

 Siberia to the Corea and Japan. (8) Kamschatka to Japan and the Chinese 

 coast. (9) From Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroes to Britain, where it ioin& 

 line 2. 



All courses of rivers of importance form minor routes, and consideration of 

 these lines of migration might serve to explain the fact of North American 

 stragglers, the waifs and strays which have fallen in with great flights of the 

 regular migrants having been more frequently shot on the east coast of England 

 and Scotland than on the west coast or in Ireland. They have not crossed the 

 Atlantic, but have come from the far north, where a very slight deflection east 

 or west might alter their whole course, and in that case they, would.naturally 



