IT 
INTRODUCTION. 
as the recurrence of the seasons : 
“ Yea, the Stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times ; and the Turtle and the Crane and the Swallow observe the time 
of their coming.” 
Besides heing tenanted by about one hundred and fifty stationary species, Great Britain has migrants and 
occasional visitants from the four points of the compass. Thus in spring nearly fifty species visit us from the 
south ; whilst in the autumn our milder and more equable climate attracts a still larger number from the 
north, who instinctively know they will here find that food and shelter which the rigorous winters of more 
northern regions deny to them. In addition to this true and characteristic migration, our islands are 
occasionally resorted to by certain species which, from some unknown cause, make a movement from east to 
west ; whdst the pseudo-migration from west to east is exemplified lii the rarely occurring American forms 
which from time to time have been recorded, and which, blown off from their native shore, find in the masses 
of seaweed, uprooted trees, and portions of wreck constantly approaching our coasts through the agency of 
the Gulf-stream, that means of rest and recruitment which finally enables a few of them to reach a welcome 
though far distant haven. A remarkable degree of capriciousness, which to me has always appeared 
mysterious, occurs in the choice of localities affected by certain of our migrants : thus the Pled Flycatcher 
will not rest until it has reached the middle and northern counties of England, while the Nightingale almost 
restricts its visit to the southern, eastern, and central ones, never favouring Cornwall with its presence, and 
but rarely going into Devonshire or Wales, or further north than Yorkshire or Durham. Again, some species, 
exemplified in many of the Plovers and Sandpipers, make our islands but a halting-place, pausing for rest 
only on their way to unknown and probably far distant regions. 
The mysterious law or law’s which govern migration must always he regarded by the naturalist w’ith the 
utmost interest. Within our own islands hardly a month passes by without the movement of some species 
occurring to remind us of the existence of such a principle. In the early spring, before the Wheatear, that 
earliest of our visitors from the sunny south, has arrived, the Fieldfare and Redwing which during the wu’nter 
have peopled our hedgerow^s and fields, the Geese, Ducks, and numerous wading-birds which have been 
frequenting our broads and rivers, have, in obedience to nature’s prompting, commenced a movement north- 
ward, en route for localities better suited, by their quietude and by the nature of the food found there, for 
the propagation and rearing of their progeny. Then, as the rays of the life-inspiring sun strike upon our earth 
with dally increasing strength, we begin to welcome in quick succession those little feathered arrivals w'hlch 
make the spring and early summer seasons of so much enjoyment and anticipation to all true lovers of 
nature. March, besides the Wheatear, brings us the Chiftchaff and the Sand-Martin ; April’s earliest days 
herald in the Swallow, Wryneck, and Martin ; by the middle of that month the Nightingale has made its 
