1910-1911.] Bird Migration in Solway. 303 



we fail to correlate the migration voices with the birds that 

 utter them. 



As an example of the Swimmers let me instance the 

 Barnacle Goose, which is the characteristic wild goose of the 

 Solway flats, found in more or less abundance from autumn 

 till late in spring on the particular kind of haunt that suits 

 their habits. About the closing days of September one 

 seldom fails to note them coming down from the arctic 

 countries where they have spent the summer. I have always 

 seen them on this flight in the afternoon and towards evening, 

 and only occasionally have I detected their well - known 

 repeated calls after nightfall. It would thus appear that they 

 prefer the daylight for flight. They are, in clear weather, at 

 so high an altitude that they can be seen only with difficulty, 

 although even at such a height their calls will be distinctly 

 audible to a sharp ear. If one of these calm sunny days, 

 with a few streaks of white fleecy clouds speckling the blue 

 sky, should come at the period mentioned, — on such a day as 

 the gossamer threads float along on the gentlest of breezes, 

 when the Starlings and Jackdaws and Black-headed Gulls 

 hawk, swallow-like, after flies, — then lift your eyes skywards, 

 watch keenly, and listen intently, and almost certainly you 

 will detect the forerunners of the Barnacle Geese, that during 

 winter form such an interesting part of the avifauna of the 

 Solway banks. On a day in early October in the year 1881 

 my dear old friend William Lennon and myself were having 

 a ramble across the Blackshaw, the wide sandbank that 

 stretches for miles eastwards from the left side of the 

 entrance to the Nith. We came upon a flock of Barnacles 

 resting after their long journey from the Arctics. The vast 

 majority of a flock, that we estimated at not less than 10,000 

 birds, were sound asleep, and those at the side of the 

 assemblage that we approached were so tired that they 

 merely lifted their heads and looked at us, walking away, and 

 not flying, unless we came nearer than thirty yards. I never 

 saw such a sight before nor have I since. These geese could 

 have been walked up to and shot by anybody, but once 

 they had wakened up from the sleep of utter exhaustion, an 

 hour or two later, the best gunner on the firth would have 

 required to put in all he knew to get within range at all. 



