Influence of Equinoctial Gales. 185 



sufficient strength to enable them to accomplish long flights, 

 the autumn American migrant proceeds leisurely south- 

 ward ; whereas in Europe it lags on for several weeks longer, 

 until autumn is nearly spent, when it has to push on quickly 

 to its winter quarters. Of the vast flocks of migratory 

 thrushes, and, as we shall see presently, golden plovers, that 

 annually start in autumn from Newfoundland for Florida 

 and the south, it may so happen that stragglers are now 

 and then caught in the ■' south-westers" that then prevail, 

 and are carried towards the British Islands ; or, in the case 

 of birds belonging to the latter country, an occasional in- 

 dividual or even a flock may be conveyed to Iceland or 

 Greenland, where, with the regular migratory species, they 

 might eventually find their way to North America. 



But as regards the Arctic route, by which a transference of 

 the birds of Europe, Asia, and America might be accomplished, 

 it may be stated with reference to Greenland that out of 

 about thirty-four strictly American migratory birds which 

 frequent that region all belong to the eastern province of 

 the latter continent, and of these only six have turned up 

 in Europe ; again, Iceland, lying to the east of Greenland, 

 receives scarcely an American bird, either migratory or 

 accidental, whilst on the other hand it furnishes more Euro- 

 pean birds than Greenland. It would therefore appear, 

 whatever may take place on the western Arctic shores of 

 North America, that, anyhow, it is improbable that the 

 intercontinental transfer of species from America to Europe 

 can be by the Arctic route ; thus adding an additional proof 

 that the conveyance of the birds of the New World to Europe 

 is by the atmospheric currents we have just indicated. 

 Among the accidental arrivals in Europe from America are 

 enumerated several non-migratory species, which may have 

 been carried out to sea by gales. Among others, as I noticed 

 with reference to one of its European congeners, in Malta,* 

 * Op. tit., p. 92, and Popular Science Review, vol. iv., p. 330. 



