Fortunately for science, however, this little island has numbered amongst its resident population an observer of rare intelligence, Mr H. Gätke, whose leisure hours have been employed for nearly thirty years in registering the occurrence of the birds which have either made the rock a temporary resting-place or been seen crossing it in their migratory flight. Mr Gätke first visited Heligoland as an artist; but having secured an official appointment there, he afterwards made the island his permanent home. During the interval, he has collected and preserved with his own hands upwards of four hundred species—a collection containing examples of the avi-fauna of the four quarters of the globe. Strange as it may appear, birds have touched here whose proper homes are wide as the poles asunder—birds from the burning plains of India and the arctic lands of desolation. The Far West, too, has contributed its land and water birds; and from the barren steppes of Siberia, tiny warblers have joined the moving throng. As instances of the abundance of what are called ‘British birds,’ mention may be made of flights of buzzards numbering thousands which passed over the island on September 22, 1881; while flocks of equal numbers rested on the cliffs, and a ‘great flight’ of hooded crows, which crossed in the same direction. As for the starling—a bird which has become extraordinarily plentiful in this country during the last thirty years—it is referred to as making its appearance in a ‘great rush,’ which no doubt accounts for a flock, recorded some time afterwards as coming from the east, by a light-keeper on the English coast, ‘estimated to contain a million starlings, making a noise like thunder, darkening the air.’ All these birds were doubtless of Scandinavian origin, and had in the case of each species travelled in a compact body along the coast-line until they reached North Germany, where they had to some extent become broken up, many of the birds being induced to alter their flight westwards in the direction of the British coasts. As a natural consequence, the earliest observers of their arrival in this country would be the light-keepers at Spurn Head on the Yorkshire coast; and the records from this station show that the buzzards and hooded crows at least, reached us from Heligoland in somewhat less than twenty-four hours.
Another important post of observation is the lighthouse on the Isle of May, in the Firth of Forth,[1] from which one of the reporters has obtained records of species of more than ordinary interest, the intelligent keeper there having sent him no fewer than seven closely filled schedules, principally referring to autumn migrations. Seventy-five species have already been identified from this station; but in addition to these, numerous entries refer to ‘small birds’ of various descriptions, regarding which and other accidental visitors, more will be known as the investigations proceed, arrangements having been made for the preservation and transmission to the mainland of all the species that occur at the station. The occurrence of the blue-throated warbler here—a very rare bird in Britain—suggests the possibility of other interesting forms being sent from this locality.
In summarising the material received, the compilers of the Report confess that the migrations of seagulls are most erratic and difficult to tabulate. In certain years, however, these are unquestionably regulated by the movements of the fish upon which they feed. The late Professor MacGillivray has recorded that, in the winter of 1837, a flock of seagulls computed to contain not short of a million birds made its appearance in the Firth of Forth; and it must be within the recollection of at least one of the reporters that in 1872-3 similar if not even greater numbers visited the firth, the most common species being the kittiwake and lesser black-backed gull. In this memorable invasion, unusual numbers of glaucous and Iceland gulls made their appearance, birds of such note among ornithologists as to be marked objects when they do occur; and the entire assemblage was suggestive of a migration controlled by the movements of fishes—the waters of the firth being at that time swarming with sprats. The ‘catches’ of the local fishermen were so heavy as to necessitate their sale at a trifling sum per cartload to the neighbouring farmers, for the purpose of manuring their fields.
There is not much, we apprehend, to be gathered from the appearance of skuas, petrels, long-tailed or ice ducks (Harelda glacialis), and other species whose haunts are exclusively marine, as their occurrence inshore signifies in nearly all cases continued rough weather at some distance from land. There are no seafaring creatures, indeed, that delight more in storms than ice-ducks and petrels; for them, the huge green waves or churned masses of foam have no terrors; they are for the time being at home amid the wildest waters—the petrels on the one hand flitting silently over the turbulent billows, rising as they advance, and falling in their wake with contemptuous ease; the ducks, on the other hand, careering aloft during a sudden blast, and sounding their bagpipe-like notes, as if deriding the war of elements. Very different is the experience of the tender songsters that traverse the dreary waste of waters; sorely tried in their powers of flight, they are not unfrequently caught by adverse gales and driven hundreds of miles out of their course, to be finally swallowed by the pitiless waves.
In connection with this subject, and as bearing upon the question of former land-communications, reference may be made to an extremely interesting paper on the Migration and Habits of the Norwegian Lemming, read before the Linnæan Society of London by Mr W. D. Crotch in 1876. In this communication, Mr Crotch shows that the lemming, which is a small rat-like animal, occurring in abundance in many parts of Norway, assembles periodically, although at irregular intervals, in incredible numbers, and travels westwards until the seacoast is reached; after which, on the first calm day, the vast multitude plunges into the Atlantic Ocean, ‘and perishes, with its front still pointing westwards.’ Such a voluntary destruction in the case of a single species is perhaps nowhere else to be found in the history of migratory animals, and it seems difficult to understand how the annihilation of so many migratory hordes through a ‘suicidal routine’ should not ultimately lead to their extinction. Mr Crotch tells us that no survivor returns to the mountains; indeed, so formidable is the migration and its effects upon the poor fugitives, that we are told by Mr Collett—a Norwegian naturalist—of a ship sailing for fifteen hours through ‘a swarm of lemmings which extended as far over the Trondhjems fiord as the eye could reach.’
Mr Crotch rightly, we think, concludes that land existed in the North Atlantic Ocean at no very remote date, and that when dry land connected Norway with Greenland, the lemmings ‘acquired the habit of migrating westwards for the same reasons which govern more familiar migrations.’ The inherited tendencies, therefore, of this little creature are opposed to the so-called instinct which impels quadrupeds as well as birds to change their quarters in quest of food and warmth, unless we conclude, with Mr Crotch, that in the case of the lemming, such instinct has persistently failed in its only rational purpose.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
BY CHARLES GIBBON.
CHAPTER XL.—MADGE’S MISSION.
The glow of happiness on Madge’s face seemed to brighten even the gloomy atmosphere outside. She had done something for Philip—something that would not only give him pleasure in the highest degree, but which he would regard as an important practical service. For she had no doubt that she would be able to convince Mr Beecham of the groundlessness of all his charges against Mr Hadleigh. Then the two men would meet; they would shake hands; all the errors and suspicions which had separated them would be cleared up, forgiven, and soon forgotten in the amity which would follow. How glad Philip would be. She was impatient to complete her good work.