336 
WILD NORWAY. 
April and October are, beyond doubt, tbe months in 
which the phenomena of migration may be observed 
to the greatest advantage. But unfortunately, with 
the trifling exceptions above mentioned, I have not 
been on the North Sea during either of these months. 
The twenty-four voyages to which the record refers 
were all made between May 6th and October 10th. 
Now, if it is permissible to deduce any conclusions 
from these sporadic observations, what is the most 
striking feature about them ? Simply this. That, 
comparatively speaking, nothing whatever is humanly 
visible of migration at sea. Every voyage some few 
belated land-birds, singly or in twos and threes, will 
seek refuge on ones steamer. But what do such scarce 
and casual appearances amount to ? Nothing. The 
birds seen are merely stragglers, lost wanderers fallen- 
out of the ranks of the migrating millions that are not 
seen. The numbers seen bear absolutely no appreciable 
relation to the vast sum-total of migration. They 
are interesting as indices of what is passing beyond our 
sight, but that is all. 
Consider what number of summer-birds are required 
to populate the one-thousand-two-hundred miles of 
Norway alone. From the Naze to North Cape not a 
wooded valley nor birch-clad slope of the fjeld but is 
vocal with the melody of summer-songsters. The 
aggregate must count up into a tangle of millions. 
Yet who has ever seen them come ? True, they may 
not all cross the North Sea; * but who has seen 
* I have mentioned elsewhere (see p. 15) that Norway receives 
her yearly influx of spring-migrants from the eastward —via the 
Baltic or Russia—rather than across the North Sea. 
