We would like to ask our readers, and the British Association, of which we are a Committee, to recognise that the more we know about migration, apparently the less reason is there for scientists to use the term "Accidental." At present "Abnormal" is better. "_Of accidental occurrence_" is a term or phrase which ought to be _expunged_, root and branch, from scientific records of migration. Every year's statistics prove this more and more fully. "Probably an escape" is, no doubt, a safeguard against undue admission to the British List; but we think it possible to carry this phrase too commonly into use, ignoring the fact that migration may account _much more simply_ for such occurrences, under certain conditions, than escapes. A list of localities where foreign fowls, like _Porphyrio melanotus_, are kept throughout the United Kingdom, would greatly facilitate positive records of "occurrences;" and all such species as Canada Geese and ornamental Waterfowl, which are kept in confinement or partial domestication, might be returned to the Committee, or to the Association, by the proprietors, if they were asked to do so by circular.
From every succeeding year's statistics, we have come almost to similar conclusions regarding the lines of flight. Three salient routes on to our East Coast of Scotland are invariably shown, _viz._: (_1st_) _viâ_ the entrance of the Firth of Forth, and as far north as Bell Rock, both coming in autumn and leaving in spring; (_2d_) _viâ_ the Pentland Firth and Pentland Skerries, both in spring and autumn; and (_3d_) _viâ_ the insular groups of Orkney and Shetland, which perhaps may be looked upon as part of No. 2; and a fourth with almost certainty passes into the Moray Firth, but avoids the high cliffs of the east coast of Aberdeenshire.
On the other hand, three great areas of coast-line, including both favourably placed and favourably lighted stations, almost invariably, save in occasionally protracted easterly winds, and even then but rarely, send in no returns or schedules of the very scantiest description. These areas are Berwickshire, the whole E. coast south of the Moray Firth, and Caithness and E. Sutherland. Each and all of these areas possess high and precipitous coast-lines, if we except the minor estuaries of the rivers of Tay and Dee, and a small portion of lower coast-line in Sutherland, which face towards the east. Nevertheless these areas partake to a very large extent of the numbers of migrants which visit Scotland. Nowhere in Scotland, perhaps, is summer bird-life more abundant than in, at least, the two more southern of these areas--Berwickshire, and the interior of Aberdeen and Banff, and the valley of Spey and its tributaries. The question appears a natural one: by what route do these summer visitants reach us? or, by what route do birds reach us in autumn? Not, I believe, _over the high cliff edge_ in the latter case, otherwise _some_ migration would certainly be visible from the rock-bound stations. As shown in one case, positive assurance is given by the reporter at Noss Head, that for eleven years scarcely a bird "_had been observed on migration day or night_," and we have scarcely any statistics to show a contrary view, as regards the said area all through our seven reports.