574 Mr. A. Trevor-Battye on the 



The group of Godwits^ though sharply defined, show an 

 affinity with the familiar Gallinayo through the Red-breasted 

 Snipe [Macrorhamjjhus griseus) and with 7o/am<s through the 

 Willet [Symphemia semipalmata) and the Terek Sandpiper 

 {Terekia cinerea), allowing us to infer that when sharp lines 

 of demarcation exist in families the link is only missing, 

 dropped out, or improved upon by the survival of the fittest, 

 adapting itself to the slow but sure changes in Nature. In 

 fact it is impossible to avoid the conclusion, when we thus 

 consider this group, that they have been derived from some 

 common ancestor. It is far more difficult to speculate 

 why certain characteristics have been retained or lost in the 

 individual species of the two groups ; but there are indications 

 that the changes have been effected in consequence of the 

 diflPerent breeding-haunts of the species, and it will also be 

 found that those that wing their way farthest north have 

 proportionately more pointed wings. 



XLIII. — The Birds of Spitsbergen, as at present determined. 

 By AuBYN Trevor-Battye, B.A., F.L S,, &c., Zoologist 

 to the Conway Expedition of 1896. 



I DO not think it needful to give, in this Introduction, more 

 than an outline of the voyage to which it refers. ' The Ibis ' 

 cannot fairly be asked to concern itself with personal adven- 

 tures, but rather with an account of the birds. We left 

 Tromso on June 15th, sighted Bear Island about one o^ clock 

 on the following day, and on the 17th inst. fell in with light 

 scattered ice in N. lat. 7Q° 10'. All that day we went 

 through the ice, sighting, towards evening, Horn Mountain 

 and the Spitsbergen cliffs. 



Upon the ice were many young harp-seals, no doubt on 

 their migration eastward to the Siberian seas. Briinnich's 

 Guillemots, Mandt^s Black Guillemots, Fulmars, Little Auks, 

 Arctic Terns, and one pair of Pomatorhine Skuas exhaust the 

 birds we saw that day. 



On the 18th we landed at Cape Staraschin, in Ice Fjord. 

 In view of the contradictory statements about the Bernicle 



