Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/33

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MIGRATION OF BIRDS ON THE N.E. COAST.
7

In a former notice (Zool. 2nd ser. 2223) I said that I believed it had been observed in the extreme south of Sweden. I now think that I was misinformed on this point, and certain it is that this form of Redpoll has not yet been found to breed in Scandinavia. What else is known of its history I have done my best to trace in the account given in the revised edition of Yarrell's 'British Birds' (ii. pp. 146–152).

I will here abstain from any generalizations from the facts I have just stated, and will only call the attention of my readers to the remarkable results at which my lamented friend Mr. John Wolley arrived with regard to the curious seasonal growth of the bill in L. linaria, as observed by him more than twenty years ago, and recently set forth by me in my history of that bird above referred to. Their truth was confirmed by the instinctive deduction of the late Dr. Gloger, to whose happy knack of solving an ornithological difficulty I the more readily bear witness since it was once my fate to confront and refute him on another matter. I will, in conclusion, point out that Wolley's experience of Lapland and knowledge of its birds has of late frequently met with scant appreciation. I have found his testimony set at no higher rate than that of another Englishman who having lived ten years in Sweden knew not the confines of the country, and but once, and that but for a single summer, visited one district in Lapland.

ON THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS ON THE N.E. COAST OF
ENGLAND IN THE AUTUMN OF 1876.

By John Cordeaux.

The following notes, although not so complete as I could have wished them to be, refer more especially to the arrival of autumn migrants on that part of the north-east coast lying between the Spurn Point and the estuary of the Tees during the fall of 1876. For many of them I am indebted to the letters of correspondents, some of whom, although not perhaps practical ornithologists, have yet a very considerable knowledge of our common autumn visitants, a knowledge acquired under the peculiar circumstances of their life, which is a very watchful and observant one,—the guardianship and care of lighthouses overlooking the