184 Pictures of Bird Life 



Continent, from tlie Arctic Circle to I'atagonia and 

 Chili. 



The extent of the worlds surface covered by birds in 

 the course of the year, many of them of minute size and 

 feeble flio-ht. is really a most interesting and fascinating 

 part of the study of bird life, and one too often neglected 

 by naturalists. 



We are too insidar even in oiu' ornithology, and rather 

 too much inchned to rank all birds not on the " British " 

 hst as outsiders, imworthy of any consideration at all. It 

 really adds very much to the interest of any particular 

 bird seen to know where it has come from and whither it 

 is bound. 



These Knots just taken out of Bray's nets, for instance, 

 have come recently from the farthest north. Various Arctic 

 explorers have found them and their young in lat. 81° 

 and 82' ; but no eggs are known to exist in any collections, 

 national or private, though the birds in their grey winter 

 plumage are so abundant in the autumn. Those Avhich 

 escape the dangers from nets, shore-shooters, and birds of prey 

 will work their way south, passing, many of them, through 

 the Spanish marismas, where they are extremely connnon on 

 passage, and, according to Saunders, down the west coast 

 of Africa as far as Damaraland ; and the retiu'ii journey 

 brings them l)ack again, passing up our eastern shores, in 

 the red breeding-plumage, the following May. Trulv a 

 wonderful annual performance. 



What a ^^leasiu'e it is to ])e al)le to follow to their 



