ds, belonging to
more than a hundred distinct species, migrate northward or southward in
Eastern America. A large proportion of these pass along the Atlantic coast,
and it has been observed that many of them fly some distance out to sea,
passing straight across bays from headland to headland by the shortest
route.

Now as the time of these migrations is the season of storms, especially the
autumnal one, which nearly coincides with the hurricanes of the West Indies
and the northerly gales of the coast of America, the migrating birds are
very liable to be carried out to sea. Sometimes they may, as Mr. Jones
suggests, be carried up by local whirlwinds to a great height, where
meeting with a westerly or north-westerly gale, they are rapidly driven
sea-ward. The great majority no doubt perish, but some reach the Bermudas
{269} and form one of its most striking autumnal features. In October, Mr.
Jones tells us, the sportsman enjoys more shooting than at any other time.
The violent revolving gales, which occur almost weekly, bring numbers of
birds of many species from the American continent, the different members of
the duck tribe forming no inconsiderable portion of the whole; while the
Canada goose, and even the ponderous American swan, have been seen amidst
the migratory host. With these come also such delicate birds as the
American robin (_Turdus migratorius_), the yellow-rumped warbler
(_Dendroeca coronata_), the pine warbler (_Dendroeca pinus_), the wood
wagtail (_Siurus novaeboracensis_), the summer red bird (_Pyranga
aestiva_), the snow-bunting (_Plectrophanes nivalis_), the red-poll
(_Aegiothus linarius_), the king bird (_Tyrannus carolinensis_), and many
others. It is no doubt in consequence of this repeated immigration that
none of the Bermuda birds have acquired any special peculiarity
constituting even a distinct variety; for the few species that are resident
and breed in the islands are continually crossed by individual immigrants
of the same species from the mainland.

Four European birds also have occurred in Bermuda;--the wheatear (_Saxicola
oenanthe_), which visits Iceland and Lapland and sometimes the northern
United States; the skylark (_Alauda arvensis_), but this was probably an
imported bird or an escape from some ship; the land-rail (_Crex
pratensis_), which also wanders to Greenland and the United States; and the
common snipe (_Scolopax gallinago_), which occurs not unfrequently in
Greenland but has n