EAST COAST OF ENGLAND. 39 



directly on to the coast, and therefore, as also shown in previous 

 reports, unfavourable passage winds — for it may be laid down as 

 an axiom that, with southerly or westerly winds, not amounting 

 to gales, normal migration is the rule, but with winds in the 

 opposite direction, the results are very opposite ; such winds, 

 more especially if strong, weary out the immigrants and compel 

 them to drop on the first coast they make, often completely 

 exhausted by the passage. The consequence has been that, on 

 our east coast, with the prevailing winds, it has been a most 

 favourable season for the observer ; and generally the number of 

 birds recorded is considerably in excess of any previous records. 



The winter of 1881-82 has been remarkable for its high 

 temperature, no such uniformly mild season having occurred for 

 many years in England. The same has been the case over the 

 whole of Northern Europe north of latitude 50° N. As might be 

 expected, so exceptional a season has not been without its effect 

 upon our immigrants. Fieldfares have crossed in very limited 

 numbers, and have everywhere been remarkably scarce in 

 localities along our east coast. Large numbers of birds which 

 regularly arrive in the autumn, as the Greenfinch, Chaffinch, 

 Tree Sparrow, Snow Bunting, and others, and which remain for 

 a few days only and then pass on, have this winter continued for 

 many weeks, and even months, resorting in immense flocks to 

 the stubble-fields near the coast, where, with no severe weather 

 to drive them away, they found an inexhaustible supply of food 

 in the large quantity of grain dashed out in harvest-time by the 

 great gale from S.W. to W. on August 26th. Snow Buntings 

 have been considerably in excess of anything known for many 

 years, the proportion of old birds not more than one in a 

 hundred. 



Another consequence of the mildness of the winter is the 

 desultory fashion in which birds have migrated; there have been 

 less of those great ''rushes," when for days together one species 

 after another rush helter-skelter on to our coast. Migration has also 

 been greatly prolonged, and the latest returns received show Books, 

 Starlings, and Larks still crossing the North Sea in February. 

 The last week in August and first in September Wheatears and 

 Eedstarts passed as usual up the coast from N. to S., the line of 

 migration being confined to the chain of sandhills. Also during 

 the firstweek of September, and again about the 20th, there was 



