144 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



quent victim to the herd-boy's gun. He is a pretty bird, very easily 

 domesticated, but void of genius. He does not care to congregate, is not 

 clamorous, and never goes far inland — perhaps not above a mile; but he 

 shifts his roosting quarters frequently from one cave or rock to another, 

 probably just because the wind shifts. 



" On the 19th of July last, I observed a migration of several hundreds 

 of the common swift. I knew that these birds, breeding only once in the 

 season, were the first of the swallow tribe to leave our shores, but I had 

 no idea that they left us so early. I have not had any opportunity of 

 watching their habits for nearly twenty years, as they do not frequent 

 this peninsula ; indeed these are the first I have seen here during a resi- 

 dence of nearly nineteen years. Perhaps I may mention the particulars 

 of this flitting in as few words as possible. 1st, The weather was very 

 w r arm and still, with a few fleecy clouds overhead. The hour was be- 

 tween five and six in the afternoon. 2d, The direction from which they 

 came was N.E., as I thought — probably from Ayrshire. They passed 

 over me as I stood on the shore, at a spot about five miles north of Port- 

 patrick, and, holding on their way, I judged, that they would reach the 

 Irish coast somewhere about Portaferry. 3d, Their flight was direct, and 

 steady, and quiet — no wheeling nor screaming, such as they practise when 

 feeding or sporting round some old gray tower. They seemed to have 

 important business on hand, and went about it in a businesslike way. 

 The level of their course was not high. They swept over the cliffs, which 

 are not above 150 feet high, and seemed to retain the same level, as far 

 as I could see them crossing the Channel. I should guess the height at 

 about 250 feet, or even less. 4fA, The order of flight. — They travelled 

 in a wide column. The individual birds were many yards asunder; some 

 were 100 yards to one side, some as many to the other side of me, and in 

 this fashion I observed them for fully twenty minutes ; sometimes there 

 were twenty in sight directly overhead, then half-a-dozen, then for a 

 second or two there were none, and then another scattered detachment. 

 In this order the stream flosved on, till at length it ceased. It is difficult 

 to conjecture how many there may have been in all ; at the time I guessed 

 them at nearly a thousand. 1 never had an opportunity of witnessing 

 the migrations of any of our smaller birds, except occasionally flights of 

 linnets in beating up to windward before a gale; and I thought that to 

 escape hawks they invariably moved under cover of night. Larger birds, 

 such as ducks, geese, swans, I have frequently seen on the move in day- 

 light ; while the swallows which congregate on our house-tops in September 

 are found some morning to have made a night-flitting, and usually a 

 moonlight one. 



" There is another fact I may mention to you: On Friday, the 9th Sep- 

 tember, we had," he continues, " our first equinoctial gale. It lasted for 

 about a week. On the 10th I picked up (at the place where I had seen 

 the swifts in July) a stormy petrel, the Procellaria pelagica of the 

 Atlantic. These birds were frequently seen off our shores in former 

 times ; but now they seem to keep outside of the Mull of Cantyre. 

 Whether an increase of steam navigation has driven them from the 

 Firth of Clyde to the open ocean, I cannot say. The same gale cast 

 ashore a vast number of medusae. So numerous were they that each tide 

 left a belt of them, at high-w T ater mark, of ten or twelve feet wide, all 

 along the beach. There seemed to be only one species, of a pinkish 

 shade, with four dull white eyes, and varied from two to four inches in 

 diameter. They were not so fleshy as some speciei I have seen. Those 

 washed up by one tide were found to be quite dry, and left little but a 

 membrane when the next tide came in. The most remarkable result of 

 the gale, was the destruction of many thousands of the short-winged 



