GENERAL REMARKS. v4 
we think it possible to carry this phrase too commonly into 
use, ignoring the fact that migration may account much more 
simply for such occurrences, under certain conditions, than 
escapes. A list of localities where foreign fowls, like Porphyrio 
melanotus, are kept throughout the United Kingdom, would 
ereatly facilitate positive records of “ occurrences;” and all 
such species as Canada Geese and ornamental Waterfowl, which 
are kept in confinement or partial domestication, might be 
returned to the Committee, or to the Association, by the pro- 
prietors, if they were asked to do so by circular. 
From every succeeding year’s statistics, we have come almost 
to similar conclusions regarding the lines of flight. Three 
salient routes on to our East Coast of Scotland are invariably 
shown, viz.: (1st) vid the entrance of the Firth of Forth, and 
as far north as Bell Rock, both coming in autumn and leaving 
in spring; (2d) vid the Pentland Firth and Pentland Skerries, 
both in spring and autumn; and (3d) wid the insular groups 
of Orkney and Shetland, which perhaps may be looked upon as 
part of No. 2; and a fourth with almost certainty passes into 
the Moray Firth, but avoids the high cliffs of the east coast of 
Aberdeenshire. 
On the other hand, three great areas of coast-line, including 
both favourably placed and favourably lighted stations, almost 
invariably, save in occasionally protracted easterly winds, and 
even then but rarely, send in no returns or schedules of the 
very scantiest description. These areas are Berwickshire, the 
whole E. coast south of the Moray Firth, and Caithness and E. 
Sutherland. Each and all of these areas possess high and pre- 
cipitous coast-lines, if we except the minor estuaries of the 
rivers of Tay and Dee, and a small portion of lower coast-line 
in Sutherland, which face towards the east. Nevertheless these 
areas partake to a very large extent of the numbers of migrants 
which visit Scotland. Nowhere in Scotland, perhaps, is summer 
bird-life more abundant than in, at least, the two more southern 
of these areas—Berwickshire, and the interior of Aberdeen and 
Banff, and the valley of Spey and its tributaries. The question 
appears a natural one: by what route do these summer visitants 
reach us? or, by what route do birds reach us in autumn ? 
Not, I believe, over the high cliff edge in the latter case, other- 
wise some migration would certainly be visible from the rock- 
