BRITISH BIRDS. 83 



habits. Let me here do justice to a previous writer. In the 4th ed. of Yarrell, 

 part vii. p. 546, the editor, in a note, says : — " Mr. Knox " is " the first EngHsh 

 ornithologist who pointed out the essential difference of the mode of 

 emio;ration and immigration." I had not read Mr. Knox's remarks when I 

 made a note of what I am about to say ; but I am pleased to find that he 

 had already stated many facts in which I agree. I also observe that 

 immigration goes on along the N.W. coast of England almost at the same 

 time as emigration on the S. coast. Our British-born Larks are largely 

 recruited in early winter by arrivals from the north of Europe, while those 

 bred in the north of England are obliged to travel south. The Gold- crest 

 comes in and goes out in the same way. This is not migratory impulse : 

 hunger, frost, and snoAV force them down. Mr. John Cordeaux, in his 

 "Notes from North Lincolnshire," 'Zoologist,' 2nd series, March 1875, 

 p. 4362, says :— " On the 29th, 30th, and 31st December, 1874, the cold was 

 extreme. I heard of one instance in which as many as fifty Larks were 

 found all in a heap in a turnip-field, frozen to death ; they had apparently 

 collected together for warmth, but had not been able to withstand the intense 

 severity of the night." Two reasons would cause a return : those who came 

 would go back to their old haunts when the pressure was removed; the 

 Britishers, however, having hatched and brought up young in England, 

 always return to their English homes, as Pigeons once having bred in 

 a dovecote rarely desert it. I have the evidence of Lark-catchers, who state 

 that they know the foreigners, which go by the name of " Dutch Larks," and 

 that they are larger ; they can tell the English birds directly, and pick them 

 out. Mr. R. Gray, in his ' Birds of the West of Scotland,' p. 122, has noticed 

 the extraordinary variation in size of some of the Larks. " Out of two 

 dozen examined, six or seven specimens were not much over half the bulk of 

 the others. It is strange that the difference in size is so very decided." 

 This was in severe weather. The larger birds were, according to our 

 experience on the south coast, the foreigners. Again, Mr. R. B. Sharpe 

 (P. Z. S. 1874, p. 637), "On Larks of Southern Africa," says of Calendula 



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