Newbury asserts that he once shot a bird which came slowly to the ground as if still flying, but reached it dead. He believed that it had died high in the air; but had never been able to account for the manner of its descent till now, when he found an explanation in the statement just given. Thousands of gold-crests annually cross and recross the North Sea at the wildest periods of the year, and unless the weather is rough generally make their migrations in safety. And yet this is the smallest and frailest British bird--a mere fluff of feathers, weighing only seventy grains. Another of the tits, the oxeye, has been met upon two occasions at six hundred and nine hundred miles from land. With regard to those birds which cross the Atlantic, it matters not for our purpose whether they are driven by stress of weather or cross voluntarily--suffice it they come. Less likely birds that have occurred in Britain are the belted kingfisher and American yellow-billed cuckoo. The white-winged crossbill must be mentioned with less certainty, for, although a North American bird, it is also found in some northern European countries. All birds of great and sustained powers of flight have one well-marked characteristic--they have long wings, with sharply-pointed ends. The general truth of this will be at once admitted if the rule be applied to the various species mentioned above. Another point is worthy of notice. The apparent speed of flight to an unpractised eye is most deceptive. A heron, as it rises and flaps languidly along the course of a brook, appears not only to progress slowly but to use its wings in like manner. Yet the Duke of Argyll has pointed out, and any one may verify the statement by his watch, that the heron seldom flaps his wings at a rate of less than from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty times in a minute. This is counting only the downward strokes, so that the bird really makes from two hundred and forty to three hundred separate movements a minute. The rook and heron fly in almost straight lines, have large rounded wings, and float with the greatest ease upon the air. The rook in its measured flight makes about five-and-twenty miles an hour; the heron thirty. Our short-winged game birds fly with incredible velocity, and any attempt to observe or count their wing movements leaves but a blurred impression on the eye, whilst in some species so quick is the vibratory movement as to prevent its being seen. Driven grouse flying "down wind" have been known to seriously stun sportsmen by falling upon their heads. A grouse does not move its wings so rapidly as a partridge, though the late C. S. was once clean knocked out of a battery by a grouse he had shot falling upon him; and in this way loaded guns have frequently been fired by dead birds. The Duke of Beaufort upon one occasion picked up a brace of grouse which had cannoned and killed each other in mid-air, and colliding is not an unfrequent occurrence.