Page:The Migration of Birds - Thomas A Coward - 1912.pdf/132

108 weather, and therefore are not trustworthy indications of the density at any time or place of migration Out of 115 song thrushes killed at the lights and sent to him, 80 per cent struck during the fourth and first quarters of the moon, and the same rule holds good for other species. The intimate relation between the lunar phases and the number of examples killed was shown by statistics from 1888 to 1894. Out of 673 specimens received only 116 were killed when the moon was more than half full.

Apart from fog or cloud, birds may fail to hit the land aimed at, either through accidental divergence from correct direction or wind drift. In November 1884 Mr Berrington received information of large numbers of rooks passing simultaneously at the Tearaght and Skelligs Lights—island stations 20 miles apart and each 9 miles off the Kerry coast. The birds arrived in continuous flocks from the westward—the open Atlantic—and passed in an easterly and landward direction; they came in small parties and in flocks numbering two or three hundred, on many days between the 2nd and 25th of the month, a few birds were noticed at the some time at stations on the south and cost Irish coasts, and all alike making for the land. From similar observations made in other years he concludes that these were portions of hosts which had overshot the mark, and failing to find