96 THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 



that probably the great highways of Antarctic 

 migration were Pacific rather than Atlantic, by way 

 of Australia and South America. The evidence of 

 a migration route across the sea south of Africa 

 is not so abundant or so conclusive, but certainly 

 exists in the very obvious dispersal of the Swallows 

 (Hirundinidye) from the Antarctic regions, and by 

 the presence of a few isolated species of Charadriid.-e 

 in that region. These latter are few, however, and 

 unsatisfactory in comparison with the numerous 

 species (some of them obviously ancestral) left 

 behind in the Australian and Neotropical regions. 

 We must also remember that vast and important 

 geological change has taken place in these Antarctic 

 latitudes during Secondary and early Tertiary time. 

 We have direct evidence of land connection between 

 Australia and New Zealand during the former 

 epoch, and probably much land has been submerged 

 (possibly owing to excessive glaciation) between 

 New Zealand and the Antarctic continent, and even 

 between South Africa and that region. The 

 Ethiopian Swallows are direct evidence of an ancient 

 Antarctic migration, which, judged by its present 

 philosophy, must have received land assistance in 

 its passage south of Africa, although those ancient 

 stages have long passed away. At no time, how- 

 ever, judged by the much more exacting botanical 

 evidence, has the Antarctic region been so closely 

 bridged with Africa as it has undoubtedly been 

 with Australia and South America; and this fact 

 is further emphasized by the notoriously great 



