12 SEPTEMBER 1935, Page 16

COUNTRY LIFE

Norwich Naturalists

The counties and shires of England have their intellectual as well as their scenic differences. The distinction of Norfolk has long been the number of' naturalists to the square acre ;

and as is right and appropriate they are giving a county flavour to this year's meeting of the British Association. I should say that the collection of naturalists at Norwich is the best on record. They are discussing, and to discuss, a seasonal topic, the migration of birds, of insects, and of fish and such sea mammals as the whale. The new students, found in most countries of Europe and of North America have found out many new things within the past few years ; but the

• supreme volume of observation is still to the credit of Giitke, who watched and studied migration for some fifty years in Heligoland, which is a focal point. He made mistakes, at any rate, in theory ; but the neglect of his classical book has kept a good many observers and theorists in the dark. He studied in the bulk what most of us can only study in very small detail. Indeed, his work remains unique in its study of mass migration.

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