FAUNAL POSITION. 



145 



open their wide arms to receive them, whilst the main stream still 

 pours on by the sides of the cul-de-sac and is distributed over our 

 whole area.i 



Wading Birds again reach the Moray Firth from north-easterly, 

 for the most part, but a few from northerly or north-westerly 

 directions, turning the corner at Duncansbay Head, and then 

 hugging the shelter of the Caithness coast. Of course, all birds, 

 besides following their habitual bi-annual routes, are often led 

 aside by tempting patches of land, which come within range of 

 their vision, and which present the most suitable conditions of 

 rest and of food-supplies. Thus, however contracted the streams 

 of migrants may be at certain points along their channel, many 

 inducements present themselves — right and left of it — for 

 divergence, of which there are many individuals willing at all 

 times to avail themselves. 



The migration lines of Waterfowl — Swans, Geese, Ducks, etc. 

 — are not dependent upon land-communications, at all events not 

 to the same extent as are other birds. Their general strength 

 of wing, and their ability to repose upon the surface of water, 

 make them so. Consequently their flights are almost at right 

 angles to those of all other birds. Even in the case of the lighter, 

 more buoyant, and perhaps less powerful of the web-footed birds, 

 such as Gulls, a more north-to-south trend in their flight is observ- 

 able. They follow the ocean routes with ease, whereas our Land 

 Birds, Wading Birds, and our Raptors, which prey upon these, 

 and upon other life on land — whose conditions of life, in fact, 

 require land-communications, — labour sore across the waste of 

 waters, and only feel secure when land lies beneath them. 



^ An American author has lately spoken of these divergencies, and even of 

 minor ones in search of feeding, as 'lines of flight,' in contradistinction to ' Fly- 

 lines.' Another American author has treated of the general subject of ' The Lines 

 of least and greatest Resistance,' in a very philosophical, if theoretical, paper : 

 and, as far as distribution of colouring matter upon bird's feathers is considered, 

 has ably illustrated his subject in wording and in drawing. The same law, we 

 hold, naturally applies to the courses of bird-migration in the Moray Firth. ( Vi«le 

 OcrcmonaJ Papers of the Cal'ifornian Academy of Sciences : ill. ' Evolution of the 

 Colours of North American Land Birds,' by Charles A. Keeler, San Franoi.'«co, 

 January 1893, p. lo9 et H€qtj.)—;i most iii^tt tictivc F>s;i\ . (Sco also inul« i- * Rnl- 

 start,' vol. ii, of this work.) 



k 



