98 



The Natuealts'T, 



the journey each day will not be forgotten, and that the impulse to 

 take the same route especially if the journey has been favourable and 

 preservative, will not be lost when the same seasonal circumstances 

 come round again. 



The following birds are migratory in Scandinavia : — rook, starlings 

 redbreast, song thrush, pied wagtail, meadow pipit, hedge sparrow, 

 black-headed bunting, skylark, wood-lark, brown linnet, chaffinch, haw- 

 finch, ring-dove, and stock-dove ; that is to say, they leave in autumn 

 for Central or Southern Europe, and it is not improbable that many 

 of our birds may leave us and join them in their winter quarters. It 

 is true that accessions of birds are regularly observed in autumn in 

 Britain, but as a rule these birds will only form the outer fringe of the 

 migrative tide that is passing along the Continent ; and on their 

 arrival here they do not stay long in one place, unless there happens to 

 be an abundance of food in their path, but keep shifting, and eventu- 

 ally are lost to observation. It is rational to conceive that terrestrial 

 birds will keep as much to the land as possible on the Continent, and 

 not risk themselves across the North Sea. When they appear in extra- 

 ordinary numbers on our coasts, the occurrence doubtless arises from 

 their being driven from their course by storms, rather than from any 

 inclination or eagerness to visit us, because our northern shores in 

 winter are nearly as forbidding and inhospitable as those the birds are 

 deserting. 



It would be interesting to learn if the scarcity of winter birds is 

 general over Britain, or if accessions have been observed in the south 

 of England. If the scarcity is merely local, the idea of an over-sea 

 migration can scarcely maintain its ground, and we may consider it 

 more likely due to insular, partial movements. 



Lofthouse, Wakefield, Jan. 5th, 1883. 



A PHYSIOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT OF THE BRITISH 

 LEPIDOPTERA.* 



By A. H . S w I N T o N o 



The Linnsean - system of arrangement being enunciated as a linear 

 projection of a Darwinian tree of descent, it becomes evident the 

 clearer we can trace the gradation of the organic structures in any 

 group of life-forms, the more perfectly we shall be able to marshal their 

 columns and draw them up into a single front. Nor is it necessary 



* Read at a recent Meeting of the Entomological Society of London. 



