WADEBS, DIVERS, AND OTHER FOWL. 239 



limited area, no groups of rocky islets, or the like, would 

 accommodate them at all. Wherever it is that they go, 

 there nu/st he, somewhere, a vast and comparatively fertile 

 region which forms their summer home ; hut we know not 

 where it lies. As hefore remarked, its discovery is not 

 necessarily a mere question of abstract scientific interest, 

 but might possibly (or even easily) prove of permanent value 

 to trade, commerce, and the human race. 



Where is the unknown region ? The idea of a warm 

 circumpolar sea (inaccessible to man through ice-barriers in 

 lower latitudes) must now be regarded as exploded. The 

 hypothetical submarine current of warm water, passing 

 deep beneath the known ice-fields all round the Pole (which 

 alone could produce this open sea), has been proved to have 

 no existence. The unknown region must be nearer home 

 than the Pole. At the moment, Siberia appears to be the 

 only possible answer, for not even the energies of a Seebohm, 

 or of a thousand Seebohms for a lifetime, could explore the 

 whole of that vast region extending from Europe to Far 

 Cathay. To the scientist and to the pioneer of commerce 

 who have the time, the means, and, above all, the endur- 

 ance, Arctic Siberia probably presents the richest field for 

 the investigation of many unsolved problems and undevel- 

 oped resources. 



In addition to enjoying this distinction — of being the only 

 British bird whose eggs have never yet been discovered by 

 civilized man* — the Curlew-Sandpiper is also a remarkable 

 example of wide geographical range, and of perfectly mar- 

 vellous powers of flight in a species no bigger than a Snipe. 

 Though breeding in the remote and unknown penetralia of 

 the Arctic regions, yet in winter Europe is not wide enough 



* The Knot and Sanderling have been found breeding, as above 

 stated, in Arctic America, but liei'er, in any single instance, on this side 

 the Atlantic. The eggs of the common Bar-tailed Godwit have been 

 discovered in two or three isolated cases in Finmark, Lapland, and, 

 'perliays, in the Taimyr Peninsula. Such instances are, however, 

 merely accidental and exceptional, and in no way indicate where the 

 vast bulk of these birds breed, and the species is not found in America. 

 The Curlew-Sandpiper has not yet been found nesting either in the 

 Old or the New Worlds. 



