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thrushes, redwings, fieldfares, pied wagtails, meadow pipits, larks^. 

 rooks, hooded crows, finches, sparrows, linnets, red poles, and 

 snow buntings. These birds continue to leave for about twa 

 months. Eather later starlings, goldcrests, ducks, and waders 

 leave in large numbers. Towards the end of March the migrants, 

 from Africa and the Mediterranean basins begin to arrive, such as 

 "Wheatears and chiffchaffs. In April many more return from the 

 south — warblers, redstarts, the cuckoo, the wryneck, the swallow* 

 and tree pipets, sandpipers, and terns. In May tlie gardea 

 warblers, spotted flycatcher, nightjar, swift and turtledove. By 

 the first week in June, this spring migration has ceased, and abomt 

 the middle of July the autumn flight is commenced by Arctio 

 waders, flying south over our coasts. Early in August many more 

 help to swell the numbers — knots, grey plovers, common sand- 

 pipers, lapwings, ringed plovers, greenshanks, curlews, swifts^ 

 wheatears, willow wrens, wood wrens, and whinchats. Early in. 

 September, swallows and martins begin to start ; ring-ouzels». 

 thrushes, and wagtails also, and still more Arctic waders pass by. 

 By the beginning of October most of our summer birds are gone^. 

 and by the end, practically all. During October there is a great 

 rush of birds into and over the British Islands from the west of 

 Asia and east of Europe, consisting of thrushes, larks, goldcrests^ 

 finches, starlings, crows, rooks and ring doves, striking on the 

 east coast. Here are some reports from the east coast for October 

 15th, 1885 : From the Fame Isles, off Northumberland, we hear 

 of a great rush of fieldfares, night and day, and the same at the 

 Dudgeon Lighthouse, off the Wash, 200 miles south. Also large 

 numbers of blackbirds by day and night, striking the entire eastern 

 coast hne of England for three days, also two large flights of 

 chaffinches, enormous rushes of skylarks for three days, enormous 

 numbers of starlings, and an almost contiDuous rush of hooded 

 crows and rooks for three days, between the Humber and the Isle 

 of Thanet. In 1882 enormous multitudes of goldcrests continued 

 to arrive right through October. For days and days together larks 

 may be watched arriving into England in a scarcely broken stream, 

 and their cries fill the air all through the night. The breadth of' 

 some of these bird waves is almost incredible. They will some- 

 times strike simultaneously almost the whole length from the 

 Faroe Islands, or the Shetlands and Orkneys, in the north, to the 

 Channel Islands in the South. Having now alluded to most of 

 the facts known about migration in a more or less general way, I 

 wish at this point to briog to your attention a remarkable book 

 written by Herr Gatke, who for fifty years has kept an exact 

 account of bird life in Heligoland, the little island in the North 

 Sea, about forty miles from the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser.. 



