202 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
the central counties, his was much too inquiring a mind 
not to attempt an investigation of migration, accordingly 
we find him writing as follows :— 
“Beside the ordinary birds which keep constantly in 
the country, many are discoverable both in winter and summer 
which are of a migrant nature and exchange their seats 
according to the season. Those which come in the spring 
coming for the most part from the southward, those which 
come in the autumn or winter from the northward. So that 
they are observed to come in great flocks with a north-east 
wind [in the autumn] and to depart [southwards] with a south- 
west [at that season].”’ I have added in brackets what Browne 
apparently intends to be understood in the last sentence. 
In another passage, evidently not quite certain in his 
own mind about the direction of the wind preferred by birds 
in the autumn, he says they come with a north-west—not a 
north-east—wind. This correction occurs in his tract on 
Hawking,* where, after alluding to the speed of trained 
Falcons, Browne says :— 
** How far the hawks, merlins, and wild-fowl which come 
unto us with a north-west wind in the autumn, fly in a day, 
there is no clear account: but coming over sea their flight 
hath been long or very speedy. For I have known them 
to light so weary on the coast, that many have been taken 
with dogs, and some knocked down with staves and stones.” 
The question of birds and wind has been much debated 
by ornithologists, and very opposite opinions have been 
held, and still are held, as to the effect of wind—both in its 
direction and force—on migratory birds, especially on the 
east coast of England.t 
* Wilkin’s edition of “ Works,” Vol. IV., tract 5. 
} At the present day, a north-east or east wind, not so strong as to be a 
gale, is considered by the majority of observers on the Norfolk coast to be 
the most favourable for bringing over autumnal migrants to Norfolk and 
Suffolk, and the same rule probably applies to all the eastern counties. Any 
birds which arrive on the coast so weary that they can, as Browne says, 
be knocked down with stones, are delayed birds, and probably the survivors 
of many others which perished in the sea. Any also which are to be seen 
arriving in the morning, against a west wind, or during the day, whether 
tired or not, are to be looked upon as delayed birds. 
By that term is meant birds which, with a moderate wind at their 
backs, would have made the passage across the North Sea in one night, and 
been on English soil before daybreak, if not impeded. 
