File:British birds (1907) (20416728605).jpg

Title: British birds
Identifier: britishbirds01lond (find matches)
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: London, Witherby & Co
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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REVIEW5
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Ueport on the Immigrations of Summer Residents in the Spring of 1906, bv the Committee appointed by the British Ornitho- logists' Club. (Forming Vol. XX., Bull. B.O.C. Edited by W. E. Ogilvie-Grant.) 34 Maps. Witherby & Co. 6s. In December, 1904, the British Ornithologists' Club appointed a Committee to enquire into the movements of the common migrants in so far as concerned England and Wales. In 1906 this Committee issued its first Report, in which the movements of twenty-nine strictly migratory species were traced from the time of their arrival on our shores in the Spring of 1905 until they settled down to breed. The present is the second Report of this Committee, and it deals with the movements of the same species, and five additional ones in the Spring of 1906. No comparison is made between the results obtained in 1906 and 1905, and, although the Committee are, no doubt, perfectly right in refusing to generalize on so comparatively slender a basis as the records obtained in two years only, nevertheless a comparative statement of the facts recorded in the two years would have been a very great gain, and need not have involved any expression of opinion. For instance, the areas of arrival of most of the species seem to have been the same in both years. Thus we now have evidence that the Glarden Warbler, Wood VV^arbler and Landrail have arrived solely on the western half of the south coast, and the Whinchat, Common and Lesser Whitethroat, Red-backed Shrike, Wryneck and Turtle Dove solely on the eastern half and south-eastern coi'ner, while most of the other species arrive along the whole south coast. The summary of the arrival areas (page 12) is somewhat carelessly made up; the Landrail, for instance, is stated on page 165 to have arrived entirely on the westei-n half of the south coast, but is placed in the summary as arriving along the whole south coast. Points of arrival are often very difficult to ascertain, and birds may very easily be missed by observers on the coast. This fact does not seem to have been taken into account sufficiently in the present report for, although it is recognised that Swifts and House-Martins which appeared in South Wales had probably passed over Devon without being seen, yet it is argued, on apparently very slender evidence, that House-Martins appearing in Sussex and Kent had made their way thither from Dorset and Hampshire. Another point to which attention should be directed, as it may indicate inaccurate observation, is that apparent movements

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