Page:The Migration of Birds - Thomas A Coward - 1912.pdf/144

120 the water. My friend Mr J. A. Dockray, when punting in the Dee estuary, has often seen birds alight to rest on his punt, and once saw a tired thrush Settle repeatedly on the water and finally safely cross the estuary. There are several instances recorded of passerine birds alighting upon and rising again from the water.

We do not know the extent of Greenland as a summer breeding home of birds; the growing knowledge of this vast continent proves that its summer avifauna is much larger than we thought, and that western and eastern forms inhabit adjacent breeding areas; the possibility of birds banding with the wrong set of travellers is greater than was suspected.

It is urged that the western shores of Scotland and Ireland should receive these stragglers, but that the records of American birds are fewer from these coasts than from the eastern shores and even Heligoland. The best island route, however, would lead birds to join the travellers from Scandinavia which pass by the safer eastern route than the one round the western wind—swept shores of Ireland. Even this reputed scarcity may be error, for how many reliable watchers are there compared with the immense length of this wave-indented coastline? How easy for a straggler to be overlooked! Mr S. F. Baird, in his paper on the "Distribution