LAND BIRDS AT SEA.
By Surgeon K. Hurlstone Jones, M.B., R.N., F.L.S.
No one who has at certain seasons of the year made anything that can be called a voyage at sea can have failed to observe the remarkable fact that often, when far away from land, birds other than sea birds come on board the ship. These birds are almost all of them migrants, and it is mainly during the spring and autumn months that they are observed to frequent the hospitable refuge that a ship at sea offers them.
Most of these birds are, I believe, such as have by some accident, often doubtless stress of weather, lost their way and their companions in migration at the same time, and, wandering over the waste of water, gladly take advantage of any passing ship for the purpose of resting. Some few may perhaps have been blown out to sea by gales of wind, or even chased from the land by birds of prey. Often the wanderers have evidently lost their bearings, for they hang about the ship much longer than is actually necessary for the purpose of resting, and indeed generally, I think, until nearing the land.
In my own limited experience the birds have come on board either singly or in twos and threes. In the following notes are jotted down the occurrence on various occasions and in different localities of a few such birds. They are not very many, and, I fear, they are not very important. They were made partly whilst I was surgeon to the steamship 'Anselm,' of Liverpool, in 1897, and partly during my service in H.M.S. 'Repulse,' of the Channel Squadron. In the 'Anselm' I sailed from Liverpool to Hamburg, and thence to Havre, Lisbon, Madeira, and Brazil. In the Channel Squadron most of my time at sea has been spent cruising off the coasts of Spain and Portugal, though I have also been to Sardinia in the Mediterranean, besides much cruising in British waters. The first notes I have, however, of land birds at sea are curiously not of their actual occurrence on board the ship.
