COUNTRY LIFE
A SPECIAL inquiry has been set afoot, not without encouragement f the Ministry of Agriculture, on the subject of wood-pigeons ; and of the results of it up to date is the discovery that next to no was known about their movements. The glib assertions in the books had little or no foundations in observed fact. Generalisation outrun known detail. I think I can make a contribution to the inq First, the winter visitors (which usually come here in hordes and great damage) can be distinguished from our home birds by the appearance of their plumage. Farmers and sportsmen in my neigh hood are convinced of this. The birds look both darker and duller our natives. Second, a good many of these visitors come, not, generally stated, from the,far North-East, but from France and Gemun and they fly back to France and Germany to nest. Of course, birds come from Scandinavia ; and there seems to be a certain amo of evidence, though not very much, that a proportion migrate across Baltic. Direct observation is wanted from any sort of observer, but must be direct. The most useful facts ought to come (as in ret observations of butterfly migration) from lighthouse and lightship k and perhaps from aeroplane detectors, who are being encouraged to wa birds in their spare time.
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