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the autumn I have been much struck with the persistency with 
which, week after week, the stonechats stick to the vicinity of the 
coast, gradually increasing their numbers, long after our other sum- 
mer migrants have left : they, too, in their turn depart, following 
apparently the great stream of migrants to the south. 
Further information, which I shall now briefly detail, has recently 
induced me to alter my views on this subject and to adopt the con- 
clusion that the line of migration followed by the stonechats is not 
the common route from N. to S. followed by other birds, but rather 
from E. to W. across the general line of migratoi’y flight, or, to be 
exact, rather from W. 1ST. W. to E.S.E. 
Facts, which Mr. Giitke, of Heligoland, has recently communi- 
cated, shew exactly identical phenomena attending the migration of 
the stonechat across that island, as are observed in the east coast 
marshes. Pratincole i rubicola occurs regularly in Heligoland in 
autumn and spring ; scarcely in such numbers as to be called very 
common; and, compared with the whinchat, which is always in 
great abundance at both migratory periods, may be almost termed 
scarce. 
In the autumn they are seen during October, some in November. 
In the spring from about the 24th to the end of February and the 
first three weeks of March. Unlike the whinchat (a species having a 
wide northern range), which always comes in great abundance from 
April 1st to the end of May and even the first week in June, the 
stonechat does not care for fine warm weather, coming when it is 
often rough and clouded. Mr. Gatke says, they are the first har- 
bingers of the returning spring, preceding the pied wagtail about a 
week. 
The stonechat cannot be considered a northern bird in Europe, 
its summer quarters, except in the extreme west and east, ranging 
scarcely beyond the middle zone of the western Palsearctic region. 
Professor Newton in his new edition of “Yarrell’s British Birds,” 
(vol. i, p. 340 et seq.) lias very accurately defined the range and 
distribution of the stonechat in Europe. It is very rare in Orkney; 
rarer still in Shetland; according to Professor Nilsson, has only 
once been met with in Sweden, and that in the extreme south ; 
and Dr. Kjoerbolling says, has been only twice observed in Denmark. 
Its northern limits may be defined by a curved line drawn from 
the north of Scotland across the North Sea, cutting the European 
