44 



MIGRATION. 



Migration 



Sky-Larks 



of 



apparently shot like an arrow from a bow, perpendicularly down from the invisible heights 

 of mid-air. 



The migration of Sky-Larks as observed on Heligoland is even more remarkable. On 

 the 6th of November, 1868, fifteen thousand of these birds were caught by the islanders. 

 On the 12th of October, 1876, I had the good fortune to witness one of these great 

 migrations of Sky-Larks. For a week previously, whilst I was on the island, the weather 

 was unfavourable; there were scarcely half a dozen birds on the island. On the 11th 

 I shot three Shore-Larks, and was informed that the appearance of this Arctic species was 

 a very hopeful sign. On the following day the west winds, which had been blowing hard 

 for some days, slackened a little ; in the afternoon it was calm with a rising barometer ; 

 and in the evening a breeze sprang up from the south-east. Gatke advised me to retire 

 early, and to be up before sunrise in the morning, when, in all probability, I should find 



the island swarming with 

 birds. Soon after midnight 

 I was awakened with the news 

 that the migrants had arrived. 

 Hastily dressing, I at once 

 made for the lighthouse. 

 The night was almost pitch 

 dark, but the town was all 

 astir. In every street men 

 with large lanterns and nets, 

 like an angler's landing-net, 

 were walking towards the 

 lighthouse. As I crossed the 

 potatoe-fields birds continually got up at my feet, 

 and when I reached the lighthouse an intensely 

 interesting sight presented itself. The whole of the 

 zone of light within range of the mirrors was alive with birds coming and going. Nothing 

 else was visible in the darkness of the night but the lantern of the lighthouse vignetted in 

 a drifting sea of birds. From the darkness in the east, clouds of birds were continually 

 emerging in an uninterrupted stream ; a few swerved from their course, fluttered for a 

 moment as if dazzled by the light, and then gradually vanished with the rest in the western 

 gloom. Occasionally a bird wheeled round the lighthouse and then passed on, and 

 occasionally one fluttered against the glass, like a moth against a lamp, tried to perch on 

 the wire-netting, and was caught by the lighthouse man. I should be afraid to hazard a 

 guess as to the hundreds of thousands that must have passed in a couple of hours ; but the 

 stray birds which the lighthouse man succeeded in securing amounted to nearly three 

 hundred. The scene from the balcony of the lighthouse was equally interesting; in every 



