460 jReport of Meetings. By the President. 



obtaining observations on the subject from Light Houses and 

 Light Vessels. 



It is obvious that the keepers of such institutions are specially 

 well situated for the purpose, and the results already obtained 

 are very valuable. 



In the current Eeport, which is published by West, Hatton 

 Garden, London, price 2s, — and which 1 strongly advise all who 

 are interested in the subject to get, — I observe, with satisfaction 

 that special praise is bestowed upon Messrs Hall and Parsons, 

 the keepers of the Longstone, and upon Mr Cutting of the Fame, 

 for the excellence of their Reports. 



Among the birds in the act of migration which they noted, 

 appear: — The common crossbill; missel thrush; ring-ouzel; 

 redstart; brambling {Fringilla montifringilla) ; snow bunting; 

 carrion crow ; hoopoe ; cuckoo ; solan goose ; 3 or 4 sorts of 

 wild geese; king, eider, and other ducks; landrail and jack 

 snipe (both killed against lantern) ; woodcock ; skuas and 

 black-headed gulls ; great northern divers (fourteen at once) ; 

 black and red-throated divers. 



For Mr Tate's Paper in our 3d vol., the late accomplished 

 Ornithologist, Mr Prideaux.Pelby (1856) supplied a "Complete 

 Catalogue of the birds which inhabit or resort to the Parne 

 Islands." I am informed by Mr Arthur Evans and Mr George 

 Bolam, — ornithological authorities of our Club who should know 

 well, — that Mr Selby's List is still substantially correct. It does 

 not of course include birds observed in the act of migration, such 

 as the hoopoe. Mr Evans writes that the only additions which 

 lie can make are " the sheldrake,'' one or two pairs of which are 

 in the habit of breeding ; an occasional shag's nest, and some- 

 times the ringed guillemot — viz., the ringed variety of the 

 common guillemot. But interesting as a bird-observing station 

 as may be the Fames, they sink into insignificance as we read in 

 the Eeport about Heligoland, which seems to be the focus on 

 which the principal rays of bird-migration are concentrated. 

 The scenes which occur there are indeed wonderful to read about. 

 Golden-crested wrens filling the gardens every where by hund- 

 reds of thousands, perching on the ledges of window-panes, 

 preening their feathers in the glare of the lamps, " all the island 

 swarmed with them, poor little souls" — in a few hours all were 

 gone ! There, in that speck of sandstone half lost in the fogs of 

 the German Ocean, have been caught birds from beyond the 



