GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 341 



replaced in Circassia and Persia by another form ; but southward 

 of this imperfectly-drawn line our Nightingale may be found as 

 a winter-visitant in Nubia and Abyssinia, as well as in Algeria, 

 where it is reported as breeding, and it would seem to migrate 

 thence so far as the Gold Coast. It is abundant in Spain and 

 Portugal ; but it is a stranger to Britanny, the western penin- 

 sula of France, just as it is to the western peninsula of England.^ 



One other example we may take, and this, though much less 

 familiar, is equally instructive as exhibiting some of the as yet 

 unexplained peculiarities of Distribution. It shall be that of a 

 bird belonging to a very different Order from the last, having 

 habits entirely dissimilar, and presenting in most ways a great 

 contrast. The Kentish Plover, j^gialitis cantiana, a species first 

 determined from specimens obtained on the coast of that English 

 county whence it takes its specific name, has its breeding-place 

 in Britain Limited to the pebbly beach between Sandwich and 

 Hastings, and in other parts of this kingdom only occurs as a 

 chance straggler. Yet this species has a very wide range, breeding 

 not only abundantly along the greater part of the coasts of the 

 temperate and warmer portions of the Old World north of the 

 Equator, but also occasionally in the interior, as at the base of the 

 Caucasus and in the chotts of the North-African plains ; while 

 in its regular migration it wanders to the Malay Archipelago and 

 South Africa, and is hardly to be specifically separated from a 

 Plover which inhabits the coast of China, or from another which is 

 found on the west coast of America from California southward, 

 though the former has been described as distinct under the name of 

 ^. dealbafa, and the latter under that of ^. nivosa. 



A remarkable case of restricted range is that of the Eed 

 Grouse, Lagopus scoticus, found — and in certain districts, as every 

 one knows, numerously — in each of the three kingdoms, as well as 

 in Wales. The details of its local distribution, as of that of all 

 other birds which breed in Great Britain, were carefully and con- 

 cisely given by Mr. More (Ibis, 1865, pp, 1-27, 119-142, 425-458), 

 and there is no need to dwell upon them here ; but what is worthy 

 of remark is that this particular species differs in no other essential 

 character save coloration from the Willow -Grouse, L. albus, which 

 is an abundant bird throughout the whole of the northern parts 

 of the Holarctic Region, from Norway to Kamchatka, and again 

 from Alaska to Newfoundland. Its remains, as before stated 

 (Fossil Birds), have been found in the south of France associated 

 with those of the Snowy Owl and the Reindeer ; and, deferring for 

 the present any hypothetical discussion, it is impossible to resist 

 the inference that our own bird, though fully entitled to the rank of 

 a " species," is a local form of the widely-spread V»^illow-Grouse. 

 1 Cf. Yarrell British Birds, ed. 4, i. pp. 315-318. 



