29 S Bird Migration in Solway, [Sess. 



sitting tired and listless-looking amongst the green leaflets of 

 the larch-trees, but happy in the conclusion of their long and 

 dangerous journey. The inexorable duty has been laid upon 

 the Willow- War biers to return to the place of their birth, and, 

 despite the long distance of the desert, the perils of over-sea 

 flight, the passage over mountains, bufieted by wind and rain 

 and cold, the command of an inherited instinct is duly 

 obeyed. 



Time would fail me, even if your patience did not, were I 

 to enter into all the minutiae of bird migration as seen in 

 Solway. I shall not attempt to do more than describe a few 

 of its salient features. 



The first birds to leave us are the adult Cuckoos, many 

 going off by the last week in June, and one seen later than 

 mid -July is a fact worth noting. 



The next to go is the Swift, and the suddenness of its 

 departure is remarkable. Up till about the end of the first 

 week in August the species is a familiar one. To watch their 

 flight high in air, as they wheel in circles and segments of 

 circles and all manner of geometric evolutions, is one of the 

 most pleasing of occupations. Some evening they are there 

 as usual, sweeping along in unrivalled grace of flight, but it 

 may perhaps be noticed that their skirling calls are unheard. 

 The birds are higher and steadier, and the manner of their 

 flight does not seem so exuberant. Perhaps we do not take 

 much notice of these points. But next day, some time, we 

 suddenly awake to the fact that no Swifts are to be seen. 

 Gone they are, and completely; we shall see not one, until 

 some fine May morning we become aware that the Swifts are 

 back, as silently and suddenly as they left us nine months 

 before. 



By the time we have realised that the passing of the 

 Cuckoos and the Swifts has taken place, the preliminary 

 preparations of other birds begin. The Swallows and 

 Martins begin to flock together and to sit in rows upon the 

 telegraph-wires and house-roofs. Curlews are heard high in 

 air, uttering their familiar calls, as they travel in twos and 

 threes shorewards. Lapwings and Plovers have left their 

 nesting-quarters. Small passerine birds gather into groups, 

 and these accumulate in the copses and hedges towards the 



