4i6 MIGRATION 



But wonderful as is the transformation in the aspect 

 of the vegetable world in these regions, the change in 

 animal life is far more sudden and more striking. The 

 breaking up of the ice on the great rivers is, of course, 

 the sensational event of the season. It is probably the 

 grandest exhibition of stupendous power to be seen in 

 the world. Storms at sea and hurricanes on land are 

 grand enough in their way, but the power displayed 

 seems to be an angry power, which has to work itself 

 into a passion to display its greatness. The silent 

 upheaval of a gigantic river four miles wide, and the 

 smash-up of the six-feet-thick ice upon it, at the rate of 

 twenty square miles an hour, is to my mind a more 

 majestic display of power; but for all that the arrival of 

 migratory birds, so suddenly and in such countless 

 number, appeals more forcibly to the imagination, 

 perhaps because it is more mysterious. 



In Part I. of this volume I have attempted to give the 

 reader what information I could upon this interesting 

 subject. My facts were principally derived from personal 

 observation of the migration of birds on Heligoland, 

 so that the subject was treated from an island point of 

 view. But since those lines were written I have had 

 an opportunity of seeing something of migration in the 

 south of France, both in autumn and spring, and the 

 study of the subject from a continental point of view has 

 caused me to modify some of the views expressed in the 

 former chapter on migration. 



When we left England in the middle of October, 1881, 

 the swallows had disappeared, but we found a few 

 stragglers still basking in the sun at Arcachon. The 

 window of our hotel looked over the bassin on to the 

 lie des Oiseaux, and as we stood on the balcony we 

 could see an almost constant stream of migration going 



