GEELBEC—GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 311 
its allies, while in 1834 Naumann (Vég. Deutschl. vii. p. 248) chose 
Gaviz 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 flavirostris, the common Wild Duck of 
South Africa. 
GELINOTTE, diminutive of the old French Geline (Lat. Gallina, 
a Hen), often used in English for what 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. 
GEMITORES, Macgillivray’s name (Br. B. i. pp. 97, 249) for 
the Order of Birds consisting of PIGEONS. 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 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.1 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 
writer 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 
1 Journ. Proc. Linn. Soc. (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. 
