GEELBEC— GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 311 



its allies, while in 1834 Naumann {Vog. Deutsrld. vii. p. 248) chose 

 Gavix as the name of a group consisting of the Grey Plover. 



GEELBEC (Yellow beak), the Dutch name used by Englishmen 

 in the Cape Colony for Anas flavirostri,% the common Wild DuCK of 

 South Africa. 



GELINOTTE, diminutive of the old French Geline (Lat. Gallim, 

 a Hen), often used in English for Avhat is otherwise called the 

 Hazel-hen or Hazel-GROUSE — the one species, perhaps, whose intro- 

 duction, were it possible, to this country might be desirable. 



GEMITOKES, Macgillivray's name (Br. B. i. pp. 97, 249) for 

 the Order of Birds consisting of Pigeons. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTPJBUTION. In regard to no group 

 of animals did the desire to know the details of what is commonly 

 styled Geographical Distribution become earlier manifest than the 

 Class Aves. One probable reason of this is the obvious fact that 

 no group as a whole possesses such faculties for extensive locomo- 

 tion, and the appearance, disappearance, and reappearance of species 

 after species, whether according to orderly Migration or as casual 

 stragglers to any particular spot or country, naturally led men of 

 enquiring mind to wonder where the resort for the rest of the year 

 of these visitants might be. By degrees this wonder gave way to 

 scientific investigation ; and, after the futile attempts (which may 

 here be passed over) of students or quasi-students of other branches 

 of Zoology, it was with lively satisfaction that ornithologists found 

 the first reasonable and philosophical explanation of the subject 

 furnished by one of their own body, Mr. Sclater. ^ Though here and 

 there in the writings of his predecessors truths are doubtless apparent, 

 it is certain that no one had hitherto taken the question seriously 

 in hand, and that such truths as had been reached were rather by 

 favour of fortune than by application of knowledge ; and this is 

 markedly shewn even in the brilliant speculations of BufFon, the first 

 Avriter who seems to have formed any general ideas on the subject. 



Now Mr. Sclater's success is to be attributed to the method in 

 which his investigations were carried on. Instead of looking at 

 the earth's surface from the point of view hitherto adopted by most 

 writers, mapping out the world according to degrees of latitude 

 and longitude, determining its respective portions of land and 

 water regardless of their products, or adhering to its political divi- 

 sions, he endeavoured to solve the problem ^simply as a zoologist 



^ Journ. Proe. Linn. Soe. (Zoology) ii. pp. 130-145. Mr. Sclater's latest views on 

 the subject may be read in The Ibis for 1891 (pp. 514-557), being a modification 

 of an Address communicated by him to the International Ornithological Congress 

 held at Budapest ; and, like an Address delivered by him at Bristol in 1875 to the 

 Biological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, it 

 has an Appendix giving a very useful list of works on Geographical Ornithology. 



