1910-1911.] Bird Migration in Solway. 299 



Galloway and Dumfriesshire coast. From mid -August till 

 mid- September, year after year, the number of birds that 

 crowd down upon the shore-line is immense indeed. The 

 first few hours of daylight on certain early September mornings 

 will show these small land birds sitting about the rocks and 

 cliffs and flat merses along the shore in great abundance. 

 Many a time I have lain in hiding amongst the rocks at the 

 point of the long promontory of Southernness, that juts out so 

 far into the troubled waters of the Solway Firth, where, in 

 autumn, there is always a great gathering of feathered 

 creatures — some coming, many going. Many of those coming 

 are from the opposite shores of Cumberland, and they have 

 probably begun their journey in Lapland morasses or the 

 great Kussian forests. Those going are the bigger proportion, 

 and they are probably without exception of strictly local 

 origin, and almost invariably go off in a direction that would 

 take them down channel midway betwixt the Isle of Man 

 and the opposite headlands of England. Although these 

 migrants thus congregated for departure have a certain 

 amount of gregarious adhesion to one another, yet each 

 separate species appears to act independently. Scattered 

 along the shore, their numbers are still being added to, and 

 it requires the minutest attention to see the individual birds 

 arrive one by one. They seem to drop literally from the 

 clouds. Let your attention become diverted for a moment, 

 next time you look at a particular place there are two or 

 three birds that were not on the spot last time you looked. 

 If it is difficult to see the coming birds, it is easy enough to 

 see the departing ones. One after another they rise as the 

 morning wears on, fly upwards and onwards, then they 

 hesitate, fly sideways once or twice, again attempt an upward 

 and onward flight, hesitate again, and down they come once 

 more to earth. Time after time they do this ; then comes a 

 flight in which no hesitation occurs, and away they go over 

 the sea. By-and-bye only a comparative few are left, and 

 these dawdle about, begin feeding, and this particular migra- 

 tion movement is over for the day, to be renewed as briskly 

 as ever with fresh accessions to their numbers on the next 

 favourable morning. But just what constitutes such a 

 morning I am not in a position to decide. There is always 



