On some icideh/ distributed Birds. 25 



had such pleasant times in Spring. It would seem that all 

 the parents' knowledge and accumulated experience is trans- 

 mitted to the offspring, even including that sort of psychic 

 faculty which tells them exactly to the day when King Frost 

 has lost his grip and growth has regained the mastery in 

 their Siberian haunts. This mysterious sixth sense, we are 

 told, is located in a perilymph just behind the ear, and with- 

 out that perilymph it is as impossible of exercise as sight is 

 without an eye. In proof of this, it is stated that a young 

 Curlew which had lost its friends, and strayed to where it 

 had no business to be, was examined by a knowing ornitho- 

 logist, w^ho succeeded in demonstrating that the usual duct 

 behind the ear was so undeveloped that the bird could hardly 

 do otherwise than wander fi'om its fellows. 



These may appear to some readers astonishing claims, and 

 we must therefore explain that this brief statement of them 

 is from a serious article in a serious magazine, " The Watcher 

 and his Feathered Friends'" in the * Nineteenth Century' 

 for May, where a good few other wonderful incidents 

 illustrative of bird-sense are detailed. 



East London, 



July, 1915. 



IV. — Remarks upon some xcidely distributed Groups of Birds 

 containimj distinctive Family Iraits. By Ambrose A. Lane. 



There has, I believe, been some opposition of late to -the 

 multiplication of new species and subspecies, the latter being 

 often based upon some very trifling variation from a normal 

 type. This, combined with alterations in the nomenclature 

 adopted by the older naturalists, and hitherto generally 

 accepted, tends to lead the study of ornithology into a path 

 very intricate to follow, even by those who possess the leisure 

 and facilities to give the matter thorouoh attention. For the 

 amateur, and sportsman, who enjoys it as a spare-time hobby, 

 it threatens to cause such bewilderment as may eliminate 

 much of the interest and popularity which such a branch of 

 scientific research may well attract. A certain amount of 



