158 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY, 
during that period from N, NE, or E. This long continuance of favourable 
passage winds for the birds has been apparent on our east coast by the general 
scarcity of the usual autumnal immigrants arriving from the North of Europe. 
With few exceptions they have passed overhead without showing themselves, 
or alighting for temporary repose. This is always the case in a favourable 
migrating season. It is a well-ascertained fact that birds migrate the best, 
and with the greatest ease to themselves, against a moderate head wind, or 
one a “few points free.” There is also during the present season another 
reason for the scarcity of immigrants, the unusually mild winter in Scandi¬ 
navia having induced many to remain long after their usual time for leaving 
the north. So that the migration of any particular species, which on a 
whole extends over a period of from four to six weeks, has this season been 
greatly prolonged, and presented much more of a desultory character, than is 
the case in average years. 
In America, or rather the Nearctic region, the heat and cold being more 
extreme, the movements of the birds are more sudden and complete than in 
the Western Palasarctic regions, where the autumnal migratory movement is 
carried on more gradually, although, normally, when once commenced it goes 
on uninterruptedly, till the great movement to the south is completed, towards 
the middle or end of November. In the present season of 1877-78 this 
southward flow of the bird tide has been much more protracted than is 
usually the case; as an illustration, I will take, out of several, the cases of 
the blackbird, fieldfare, and woodcock. The first flights of the former 
species arrived on our north-east coast after the great gale from the SW on 
the night of October 14th. There was again a great influx of blackbirds 
coming from the north on or about the 26th of November, and the two 
following nights ; this immigration extended, as I have ascertained from the 
notes kindly supplied to me by the principals of lighthouses in our north¬ 
east districts, nearly the whole length of the Yorkshire coast-line, also in 
north-east Lincolnshire. Mr. Gatke, of Heligoland, an ornithologist having 
a European celebrity, writing to me from that island, January 21st, says :— 
“ For some weeks we have had every day some woodcocks, also some black¬ 
birds.” Again later, “ February 2nd, wind E in the morning, N and N by E 
in the evening. Tardus merula , from 20 to 40, as I fancy from the north.” 
The first flight of fieldfares arrived in north-east Lincolnshire from the 
18th to the end of October. Since this date they have come in at intervals 
during the winter. As late as the end of January, Mr. Gatke writes from 
Heligoland : “ January, night from 27th to 28th. Tardus pilaris , countless 
flights.” Woodcocks have been exceptionally scarce, my first notice on the 
north-east coast was from Seaton Snook, Durham, October 5tlr; all through 
January some appear to have touched daily at Heligoland.* 
Although the weather has been on the whole remarkably and abnormally 
mild in the north of Europe, we have had at intervals some short bursts of 
* Great numbers of woodcocks passed the No. 5 Tees Buoy Lightship on the 20th 
and 21st of October. Wind W and SW, with rain. 
