THE LATE MIGRATION OF REDWINGS.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The publication of letters on the above has brought me communications on the same subject—one from a correspon- dent in Co. Cork, who tells me that he saw a flock of redwings at Glengarriff on April 9th, and one from a Swedish gentleman, who writes :—" It seems to me that marvellous instinct must have prompted the birds to delay their departure for Scandin- avia, as at the time you wrote the whole country was covered with deep snow ; in fact, ten days ago (his letter is dated April 21st) the weather in South Sweden was cold and the ice on the Wettern Lake was 1 metre thick ; yesterday the warm weather had reached Gothenburg."
Though I originated this correspondence, I am not yet satisfied that the redwings are late in their migration. It was the fact of seeing a flock in London on March 17th, two months or six weeks later than I have been accustomed to seeing them here, that raised in my mind the question whether the cold weather had detained them down here unusually long. They arc always in the country for many weeks after their appearance in London, which generally only occurs in very hard weather. Mr. Cornish's interesting and valuable letter relates only to coast records. With regard both to emigrant and immigrant birds I imagine the coast records are necessarily respectively later and earlier than inland records. If my supposition that the late appearance of redwings in London means their late emigration, the coast records this year ought
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