REPORT
ON THE
MIGRATION OF BIRDS
FOURTH REPORT, 1882.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WEST, NEWMAN & CO., 54, HATTON GARDEN
1883.
Price Two Shillings.
REPORT
ON THE
MIGRATION OF BIRDS
IN THE
SPRING AND AUTUMN OF 1882.
BY
Mr. JOHN A. HARVIE BROWN, Mr. JOHN CORDEAUX,
Mr. R. M. BARRINGTON and Mr. A. G. MORE.
"It is much to be wished that some of the light-keepers of our lighthouses would make notes of their observations concerning seals, whales, birds, fishes, and other animals. Such records would be valuable; and might not some of them occupy their leisure hours in the study of Natural History? ... Interesting observations would then certainly be made, and new facts added to our stores of knowledge."—'Chambers' Journal,' p. 831; Dec. 23, 1876.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WEST, NEWMAN & CO., 54, HATTON GARDEN.
1883.
(East Coast of Scotland, p. 1.)
"Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean's side?
All day thy wings have fanned
At that far height, the cold, thin, atmosphere.
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near."
Cullen Bryant.
(East Coast of England, p. 27.)
.... "Wild birds that change
Their season in the night, and wail their way
From cloud to cloud," ....
(West Coast of Scotland, p. 55.)
"Where the Northern Ocean in vast whirls
Boils round the naked, melancholy Isles
Of further Thule, ....
Who can recount what transmigrations there
Are annually made? What nations come and go?
And how the living clouds arise.
Infinite wings! till all the plume-dark air
And rude resounding shore are one wild cry?"
(Irish Coast, p. 73.)
"Islets, so freshly fair.
That never hath bird come nigh them,
But from his course thro' air
He has been won down by them."