A HISTORY OF CORNWALL travelling along the border of the Arctic Ocean in the company of normal migrants till they reach the north of Norway, turn southwards along the west coast of Northern Europe. That these birds cross England with the great migratory stream from the north-east is incredible, as such wanderers occur much more frequently in Cornwall than in the counties over which such a route would lie, and in which indeed most of the species have not been recorded at all. Of the six examples of Bonaparte's gull recorded for the United King- dom, three have occurred in the south of Cornwall ; of the three solitary sandpipers so recorded, one was obtained at Scilly, and one at Marazion Marsh ; of the nine Bartram's sandpipers, three have been shot at the Lizard ; of the three yellowshanks, one was shot at Marazion ; of the two killdeer plover, one occurred at Scilly ; of the four American stints, one was obtained at Marazion and one at Penzance ; while the little green heron shot near St. Austell in October, 1889, is the sole European representative of this species from tropical and temperate America. It is remarkable that of the forty-two indisputably Cornish examples of the American species, thirty-one, including eighteen from Scilly, have been obtained to the west of a line drawn from Godrevy lighthouse to St. Michael's Mount, four from the Lizard, six from the immediate neighbourhood of Fal- mouth, and only one, the little green heron already referred to, from further east in the county. This suggests either that they have migrated down the Channel and been driven back, or else that wandering round by the north of Scotland they have come down the west coast, either through the Irish Sea, or round by the west of Ireland, and so struck the westernmost portion of the county. Some, no doubt, have come by the latter route, but as only four out of the twenty-four American birds that have been obtained on the Cornish mainland were captured on the north coast, and no less than twenty on the south, one may conclude that the Channel route is the usual one. Many flocks and irregular flights of birds come in from the north, both at Hayle and at Scilly ; but there is little to indicate where they originated, or by what route they have travelled, and migratory records at both stations are still unfortunately meagre. During autumn and winter flocks of starlings, larks, redwings, thrushes and various undetermined land birds have been observed at Scilly coming in from the north-west, on two occasions against a fairly stiff south-easterly breeze, so that it is more than likely birds cross over from the south-east of Ireland to the west of the county, but to what extent this is a genuine annual migration is at present uncertain. The routes or flight-lines adopted by our emigrant birds in autumn are towards the south, the south-west, and the west. Occasional flocks are reported by fishermen in the Channel as moving towards the south-east, and the St. Ives fishermen at long intervals observe very large flocks moving towards the north-west. There is, of course, a very considerable east-to-west movement at times between the mainland and the Isles of Scilly, and in the late autumn immense numbers of starlings, larks, redwings, fieldfares and other birds pass over these isles, particularly at night, in a westerly direction that if persisted in must carry them right into the Atlantic ! In spring the immigrants come in from the south-west, the south, and the south-east. Coasting flocks are occasionally noticed on the south moving 316
