254 Mr. W. Eagle Clarke—^ Month 
JS' 
this as it may, it is a fact^ not, perhaps, without significance, 
that the only specimens I have seen of this form elsewhere 
were obtained at the Spurn Head Lighthouse in the autumn, 
and were doubtless immigrants. 
Throughout the movement, and especially when it was at 
its height in the earliest hours of the morning, the scene 
presented was singular in the extreme and beyond adequate 
description. Resplendent, as it were, in burnished gold, 
hosts of birds were fluttering in, or crossing at all angles, 
the brilliant revolving beams of light ; those which simply 
traversed the rays were illumined for a moment only, and 
became mere spectres on passing into the gloom. The 
migrants which winged their way up the beams — and they 
were many — resembled balls or streaks of approaching light, 
and they either struck the lantern or, being less entranced, 
passed out of the rays ere the fatal goal was reached. Of 
those striking some fell like stones from their violent contact 
with the glass, while others beat violently against the windows 
in their wild efforts to reach the focal point of the all-fascinating 
light. Many of those that freed themselves from the dazzling 
streams came in sharp contact with the copper dome of the 
lantern, making it resound again, and then fell like flashes 
into the surf below, followed slowly by a shower of feathers 
resembling a miniature storm of golden flakes. Finally, 
above and below the madding crowd in the illumined zone, 
great numbers of the emigrants flitted around in dim con- 
fusion, and in almost weird contrast with the brilliant 
multitudes gyrating in the adjacent vistas of light. The 
accompanying babel of tongues was also a striking feature. 
These were not cries of gratification, but of surprise and 
alarm; and they varied from the loud rattling notes of the 
Blackbird and the harsh angry ^^churr" of the Mistle- 
Thrush to the faint and danity twitter of the Goldcrest. 
Some Skylarks every now and then, under the impulse of 
excitement no doubt, broke out into a few notes of song. 
Not a few strange voices were heard, some probably uttered 
by species with whose ordinary notes one was quite familiar; 
but migrants, especially Waders, have a travel-talk which is. 
