Report on the Migration of Birds in the Spring and Autumn of 1884. Sixth Report / (Vol. II No. 1)

SIXTH REPORT. (Vol. II., No. 1.)
A good practical naturalist must be a good observer; and how many qualities are required to make up a good observer! Attention, patience, quickness to seize separate facts, discrimination to keep them unconfused, readiness to combine them, and rapidity and yet slowness of induction; above all, perfect fidelity, which can be seduced neither by the enticements of a favourite theory nor by the temptation to see a little more than actually happens in some passing drama. — Essays, Bishop Wilberforce , Vol. I.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WEST, NEWMAN & CO., 54, HATTON GARDEN.
1885.
The following Report contains a summary of investigations of the Committee re-appointed by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Montreal, Canada, in 1884, to consist of Professor Newton, Mr. J. A. Harvie Brown, Mr. John Cordeaux, Mr. W. Eagle Clarke, Mr. R. M. Barrington, and Mr. A. G. More, for the purpose of obtaining (with the consent of the Master and Elder Brethren of the Trinity House, the Commissioners of Northern Lights, and the Commissioners of Irish Lights) observations on the Migration of Birds at Lighthouses and Lightships, and of reporting on the same at Aberdeen in 1885. Mr. Cordeaux to be the Secretary.
The returns relating to Scotland have been arranged by Mr. J. A. Harvie Brown; for the East Coast of England, by Mr. Cordeaux; for the West Coast of England, by Mr. W. Eagle Clarke; and those for the Coasts of Ireland, by Mr. R. M. Barrington, Mr. A. G. More, and Mr. Eagle Clarke.
Having obtained an additional grant from the British Association, we venture this year to add a new feature to our Report in the form of a sketch-map, showing all the stations in red. We have done this at the intelligent request of several of our reporters; and the map has been executed for us by Messrs. Macfarlane & Erskine, of St. James' Square, Edinburgh.
Click on map to view larger sized.
Thanks again to Messrs. Gray and Anderson, I have some interesting items of migration to record, taken by the latter gentleman on board the steamship 'Marathon' in the Atlantic. These are best given in extenso ; and land-notes will be given after the paragraphs on each species or group.