48 THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 



fullest extent, but winter in various parts of the 

 Northern Hemisphere, where climatal conditions 

 are suitable. 



Now if this were actually the state of things 

 during remote ages when the South Polar Basin 

 was a great breeding-ground for Waders and other 

 birds, it is only reasonable to expect that some 

 evidence is still left to us in support of our con- 

 jecture. Such evidence fortunately is forthcoming. 

 There are many species of the Charadriid^ left 

 behind in the Southern Hemisphere, remnants of 

 that Great Exodus of byegone ages, some of them 

 very ancient relics indeed, as, for instance, the three 

 species of Phegornis, one of which (P. leucopterus) 

 is stranded on the Society Islands ; another (P. 

 cancellatus) on the Paumota Archipelago, and the 

 third (P. mitchelli) on the Peruvian Andes. These 

 birds are remarkable for their rounded wings, seden- 

 tary habits, and other peculiarities, and are acknow- 

 ledged by one of the greatest living authorities on 

 this group, Mr. Seebohm himself, to be "the least 

 changed descendants of the ancestors of the Sand- 

 pipers." Their presence on these Pacific Islands and 

 coast of South America appears to me to indicate an 

 ancient route of Migration across the Pacific Ocean 

 in the extreme east and west, from one Polar region 

 to another — a route which now is to a very great 

 extent discarded by existing species, although even 

 at the present day there is a considerable Migration 

 across that ocean by way of the Malay Archipelago 

 and Australia. For, just as the line of present 



