Migration of Birds 335 



our Swallow, Cuckoo, Sedge-Warbler, Garden-Warbler, 

 Willow- Warbler, Bee-eater, Kestrel, and many others ; 

 many of them being birds of weak flight, which one would 

 not iiave believed capable of performing such a long 

 journey. An excellent example of direct migration to 

 South Africa is that of our Common Night}3.r (Ctrpn'r/iu/^^us 

 eiiropccus). The route of the British species is marked in 

 East Africa and the region of the Great Lakes by the 

 specimens procured by British and German explorers 

 during recent years, and we find that although many 

 species, like those above-mentioned, go straight away to 

 the Cape Colony, there are many which do not do so ; and 

 this without any apparent reason, as they are migrants of 

 the same type as those which reach South Africa. 



Take, for instance, the case of our two European 

 Shrikes, the Red-backed Shrike {Enneoctonus collurid) and 

 the Wood-chat Shrike (E. pomeraiuis). Both species are 

 found in summer in Europe, and the former is not a rare 

 bird in England. Their habits are identical, and they are 

 both migratory, but the Red-backed Shrike extends its 

 winter range to the Cape Colony. Not so the Wood-chat, 

 which goes to North-eastern Africa, and to Somali-land, 

 but then re-appears in West Africa. Failing information 

 that it crosses the Sahara direct, we can only imagine that 

 it turns westward from the Nile Vallc)-, skirts the Sahara 

 as if it were still a sea, and re-appears in West Africa. 

 The Whinchat (Pratincola rubetra) apparently follows the 

 same course of winter migration, and appears in Sene- 

 gambia and the Gold Coast. The Willow-Warbler is found 

 not only in West Africa, but also in South Africa, and it 

 likewise winters in the oases of the Northern Sahara, so 

 that it is probably from this base of migration that the 

 species reaches Senegambia, but nothing is really known. 

 All must be conjecture until stations of observation have 

 been established. 



