QUEER TRAVELLERS.
At this moment, when the change is at its height, we must all notice the migration of birds, if Only by the disappearance of the summer birds and the appearance of winter flocks. But we are reminded that birds are not the only migrants. A serious Government publication reported last week the migra- tion of a crab that travelled a hundred miles in four years.; and it seems that the Aberdonian crabs are ;better travellers than most ! We have had during the year rare examples of the migration of butterflies, both in mass and one by one. How- ever, it is the markers of submarine animals that have won the greater triumphs. 'Salmon, sea-trout, and shell-fish are all marked, as birds are ringed, in considerable numbers. The sum of information grows steadily, and may have considerable economic importance. As for interest, no migration is quite so astonishing and inexplicable as the journey of the mated eels to the deep Atlantic and the two years' journey of the young to the British rivers, nor is any quite so hard to trace and explain as the salmon's and, indeed, the herring's. Omuta exeunt in mysterium.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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