456 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



quite certain that Herr Gatke has worked with equal enthusiasm and 

 patience to bring about the magnificent result with which he is justly 

 credited ; for, thanks to his labours, we read that " Heligoland is the only 

 part of the world of which the Ornithology has been properly worked." 

 What wonder, with so glorious a model before him, that " every boy on the 

 island is a born and bred ornithologist " ? There are in all about five 

 hundred different birds which are known to either breed or winter in Europe. 

 Of these rather more than two hundred (2*22, to be exact) are found in Great 

 Britain and in Ireland during winter or summer, that is, over an area of 

 about 122,000 square miles ; whereas considerably more than three hundred, 

 at one season or another, have been identified by the indefatigable Gatke 

 in his tiny but most prolific domain, measuring, all told, four-fifths of a 

 square mile. Truly a wonderful instance of the superiority of quality to 

 quantity ! Mr. Seebohm quotes freely from the Secretary's diary, which 

 in good sooth contains some staggering entries. The language, in respect 

 of numerals, is scarcely equal to the demands he would fain make upon it. 

 Thus, on one night he notices " thousands of Great Tits"; on another, 

 "tens of thousands of Sky Larks"; on a third, "immense flights of the 

 Common Buzzard." A little farther on we find him recording the passage 

 of " millions of Red-throated Divers," "countless numbers of Hedge- 

 sparrows," " thousands of Jays," " myriads of Goldcrests," und so weiter. 

 One of the most curious bits of reading extant in Natural History is Mr. 

 Seebohm's own account of a " migration night " in Heligoland, when every 

 native is on the watch with stick and lanthorn. The uninitiated cannot 

 understand why a great arrival of feathered guests should be looked for on 

 one night more than another ; the native is endowed with a special sense, 

 which enables him to foretell, almost unfailingly, the approaching migratory 

 wave. The variety of birds is no less extraordinary than their countless 

 multitude. " Perhaps the first bird you flush," says the historian, " is a 

 Sky Lark ; the report of your gun may start a Golden Plover or a Jack 

 Snipe; then, may be, you see some small birds picking insects off the 

 potato-leaves, and you presently secure a Little Bunting, an Aquatic 

 Warbler, and a Shore Lark. Your next shot may be a Corn Crake, fol- 

 lowed by a Ring Ouzel, a Richard's Pipit, or a Teal. Then, perhaps, a 

 Great Spotted Woodpecker or a Short-eared Owl attracts your attention." 

 There is assuredly no monotony here. And whence come they, whither 

 go they, one and all? Not even the joint intelligence of Gatke-cwm- 

 Seebohm can adequately unfold this great mystery to us. That they do 

 come, however, and do go, in numbers almost inconceivable, is a fact which 

 has been ascertained beyond all suspicion of doubt. A strange experience 

 is that of the lighthouse-keeper, whose beacon is sometimes the centre of 

 a mass of bird-life, each unit madly struggling to reach the fatal light, only 

 to fall, a bruised and lifeless little corpse, in the gallery which runs round 



