166 REPORTS. 



Report of the Ornithological Section, 1919. 



A writer on Natural History subjects in a daily news- 

 paper last spring said : " There is nothing so characteristic of 

 April as the return of the birds. As, expectantly, we await 

 their arrival with a thrill in the feeling that they have been 

 so far since last we saw them, we become suddenly aware that 

 they are with us again, having come silently by night, for 

 nearly all their mass movements take place under cover of 

 darkness, as sailors and lighthouse keepers can best tell us." 



Professor J. A. Thomson defines migration as "a regu- 

 larly recurrent oscillation between a place of breeding and 

 nesting and a place of feeding and resting," and he further 

 points out that the nesting always takes place in the coldest 

 part of the migratory range. 



Apart from the comparatively restricted migratory move- 

 ments that are known to occur everywhere, the great 

 migrations, covering thousands of miles perhaps, are one 

 of the marvels of nature. Migration is still a riddle unsolved. 

 Has it anything to do, directly or indirectly, with the north- 

 ward and southward march of the sun ; or is it wholly or in 

 part a question of feeding ? Certain it is that as the sun 

 comes up from the south in the spring of the year, rising daily 

 higher and ever higher in the sky, bringing more light and 

 warmth in its train, some well-known species of birds, long- 

 absent, appear again in our midst, delight us by their presence 

 and their song for a few months, and then return southward 

 in the wake of the retreating sun. 



The chaffinch is amongst the very first of our resident 

 birds to feel the touch of the on-coming spring. As early as 

 the middle of February he seems conscious of the fact that 

 the days are lengthening and a good time coming for himself 

 and all his kind. His first attempts to sing are most amusing 

 to listen to, for after several months of silence it takes a good 

 deal of rehearsing to get back his voice, tune up and roll out 

 the old familiar snatch of song in all its beauty and perfection. 



To hear the chaffinch on a fine day in February is in 

 itself a breath of spring. Much of hard weather may still be 

 in store even in Guernsey before spring gains complete 

 ascendancy over winter, but the chaffinch takes hold of time 

 by the forelock and gets ready. This is several weeks before 

 the arrival of what is, I suppose, our earliest migrant, the 

 sweet-noted little chiff-chaff who we expect to hear any day 

 almost after the middle of March. 



But before I give you the customary notes about this and 

 a few other of our summer visitors, let me read some more 



