Page:The Migration of Birds - Thomas A Coward - 1912.pdf/123

Rh force of the easterly winds, the trend towards the north-east of the rapidly travelling cyclone and its own southward flight. If it is flying faster than the speed of the cyclone it will drift westward but gradually approach the low pressure centre. After passing this its course will at once change and its speed will be accelerated towards the east.

Even violent storms move at varying rates, and it is conceivable that a bird leaving Scandinavia on favourable anticyclonic winds might at once come into the influence of a large, slowly-moving, circular storm, with a low-pressure centre to the West of Ireland, and might, if the air currents were strong, be carried westward at first, then south and finally eastward, so that it would actually pass round the British Islands. I have taken this exceptional case from the actual course of it storm, which varied between forces 9 and 11 on the Beaufort Scale (say an average of 50 miles per hour) but only travelled slowly eastward at about 17 miles per hour. In some cases the storm centres are nearly stationary for many hours.

It is easy to appreciate Herr Herman's statement that spring immigration in Hungary is accelerated on the good side of a mild cyclone; the direction of the bird, of the circulating air currents and of the whole system may be coincident. Given a low-pressure centre west of the Bay of Biscay, spring