BIRDS 303 



in Silloth Bay on the 26th of July 1888; these, he thought, 

 had been driven up the channel by a strong wind from the 

 S.W., the sea being rather lumpy outside. But though this 

 Scoter is represented on our coast-line in every month of the 

 year, it will of course be understood that the species is most 

 notably a winter immigrant, leaving our coasts in early spring 

 in order to revisit its breeding-grounds in Northern Europe. 



Mr. Hewetson favoured Mr. Eagle Clarke with a description 

 of a large flight of Scoters, which passed over Skipton in West 

 Yorkshire, on the 24th and 25th of April 1879 ; on the first of 

 which dates the ducks, bewildered by the lights of the town and 

 the darkness of the night, flew against chimney pots and houses, 

 no fewer than one hundred and fifty being secured. A large 

 proportion of them were immolated by the telegraph wires. 1 

 These birds were flying from the westward against a gentle east 

 wind, and I think that no one, who consults a map, will find 

 fault with the inference that the Scoters were migrating from 

 their winter quarters off Morecambe Bay and Fleetwood across 

 Yorkshire, intending to strike the Humber or the low-lying 

 coast of Holderness. The return passage of these birds is 

 illustrated by an observation of Mr. W. Nicol, who informed me 

 that on the 11th of October 1888, when fishing near Silloth, he 

 saw a flock of from eighty to one hundred Common Scoters 

 flying at a great height from east to west, ' as if they were on 

 their way from their breeding quarters. They did not stay 

 here, but went right away west.' Mr. Nicol has had many 

 opportunities for studying the habits of this Scoter, and has 

 often heard the birds flighting over Silloth on a winter's night, 

 calling loudly. Among other occasions, this was noticed fre- 

 quently in the early spring of 1889, when the Scoters, which 

 spent the hours of daylight in Silloth Bay, used to fly at night 

 up the channel at a height, rounding the Grune and crossing 

 Skinburness marsh to Silloth. I have on one occasion only 

 recognised the call of this Duck migrating over Carlisle. 

 1 Zoologist, 1880, p. 355. 



