Page:The Migration of Birds - Thomas A Coward - 1912.pdf/141

Rh and the 1811 edition has his name on the title, but Mr A. C. Smith shows that the real writer was a comparatively unknown man, John Legg. Legg must be looked upon as one of our first real students of migration. It is Legg who refers to a pamphlet which appeared in 1740 in which it was seriously argued that swallows migrated annually to the moon.

All this time, from 1736 onwards, the family of Marsham in Norfolk, had been quietly recording observations on the arrival of migrants, each generation continuing the work, The accumulated results have been used, and will he used again, in studying the science of "ornithophaenology."

A myth, founded on mistaken observation as well as upon more speculation was, and to some extent still is, that the larger migrants assist the passage of the weaker ones, How else, is still asked, can weak-winged species cross the sea? It was an old legend when J. G. Gmelin heard it from the Tartars in 1740; each crane they told him look a corncrake on its beak. There are men who know the corncrake well, who believe to-day that the bird must skulk unseen through the winter, for they assert it is quite incapable of lengthy flight. It is useless to argue with them; the only answer is that it not only can, but regularly does perform a long double journey; its range extending from northern Europe to South Africa. In 1911 I handled a water-rail,