326 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. vii. 



[The most reasonable explanation of the above recorded 

 immigration of Woodcocks would seem to be that it was 

 a weather-movement from some part of the Continent, such 

 as takes place almost every winter on a larger or smaller 

 scale in the case of the Thrushes, Sky-Lark, Starling, etc., 

 and which is an exact reproduction of the ordinary 

 movements of the autumn migration initiated by a sudden 

 fall of temperature and other weather alterations, making 

 the selection of new winter-quarters a necessity. 



In the case of the Woodcock, such a winter migration 

 would appear to be quite unusual, their food supplies in 

 Scandinavia and northern Europe generally probably having 

 become already inaccessible at about the same time as 

 the normal late autumn-passage movement of the species 

 in November, which therefore might itself almost be 

 regarded as a " weather migration." The Thrushes and 

 other Passeres, on the other hand, would be able to live 

 for a long time under conditions that the Woodcocks 

 would not be able to withstand. 



Normally, therefore, there are probably no Woodcock- 

 left in northern Europe to supply the birds for a later 

 winter movement. On this theory we must imagine that 

 the winter up to, say, the end of December, 1913, was an 

 unusually mild and open one in some part of Scandinavia 

 or northern Europe, so that a certain proportion of 

 Woodcock remamed behind, and that about the new year 

 a sudden fall in temperature or a heavy snow-fall took 

 place and forced them to seek fresh quarters. It remains 

 to be discovered whether such conditions did actually 

 exist in the areas and at the times specified. Mr. Wade 

 refers to the exceptionally hard weather prevailing all over 

 Scandinavia, etc., but it is not clear when these conditions 

 began. 



Other points which seem to support this explanation 

 are : (i.) a proportion of the birds, at any rate, were 

 exhausted, and had therefore probably made a long over- 

 sea passage ; (ii.) they appear to have dropped down in 

 unusual and unlikely places, just as tired oversea migrant 

 Woodcock do ; (iii.) the area of arrival is very much the 

 same ?is that of the ordinary autumn-migrants ; (iv.) like 

 the latter also, their arrival seems to have coincided with 

 that of a certain number of Goldcrests ; (v.) there was an 

 undoubted arrival of migrants, though in lesser numbers, 

 about the same time in Suffolk. 



It would be interesting to know whether the same 

 movement was noticed on the east coast and northern 



