OCCURRENCE OF EUROPEAN BIRDS IN N. S. — PIERS. 229 



had remained here after the fall migration, whereas one would 

 expect them to have passed southward to escape the severe 

 season of the year. The March record could be accounted 

 for by the bird being then ia transit northward under the 

 vernal migratory impulse. 



Judging by the evidence, we are fully justified, I think, 

 in assuming that these north-breeding water-birds have 

 arrived on our coast by way of Iceland, Greenland, and 

 Labrador or Newfoundland, which is the usual route taken 

 by European birds coming to eastern America; and that 

 none of them have ever flown directly across the whole 

 Atlantic Ocean, as is a popular belief among many people 

 who are not ornithologists. At the time of migration, they 

 have, no doubt, been turned in our direction by heavy east- 

 erly gales or other stress of weather, rather than from any 

 mere individual motive or impulse. The prevailing winds 

 in the North Atlantic are from the southwest and west, 

 with easterly eddies about the coast of Greenland, but a 

 flight is apt to encounter an adverse easterly gale at any 

 time. In passing to the mainland of North America, the 

 greatest flight these storm-strayed individuals would have 

 to undertake, would be only about the same as that they had 

 been in the habit of successfully taking from the British 

 Isles to Iceland. 



Of course, some of our American birds are similarly met 

 with casually in the Eastern Hemisphere, as in the case of 

 our Baldpate or American Widgeon, and other birds, which 

 are recorded in lists on the east side of the Atlantic. 



European Widgeon. Mareca penelope (Linn.). A.O.U. No. 

 136. — A male of this species was shot at Melbourne, on Che- 

 bogue Harbour or River, about five miles southeast of Yar- 

 mouth, Yarmouth county. Nova Scotia, on 9th January, 

 1912, by James Allen. It was mounted by Benjamin Doane, 

 taxidermist of Yarmouth, and in November, 1912, was 



