43B 



NA TURE 



[March io, 1898 



Llanberis, a,nd looks as if a mere touch would precipitate 

 it into the Pass below. 



Photographs have often been taken of single examples 

 of fossil trees in submerged forests and in the coal- 

 measures or other rocks. But it is not often that a 



Photosrai>h:d by Mr. G. Bingley, Headingley, leeds,\ 



Fig. 2.— Y Foel, Perfedd, Llanberis. 



whole forest of Carboniferous trees is exposed to-day in 

 quarrying operations, and it is still more rare to have 

 them preserved for future generations by a building, as 

 has been done in the instance from Partick, figured 

 below. This photograph was taken by Mr. R. McF. 



\Copy right. 



Photographed by Mr. R. McF. Mure, Paisley.] 



Fig. 3. — Carboniferous Forest, Partick, Glasgow. 



Mure, of Paisley, who has kindly furnished me with 

 particulars as to the size of the trees : the stems are 

 most of them over two feet in diameter at the base, and 

 the spread of the roots in some cases is correspondingly 

 large. W. W. Watts. 



NO. 1480, VOL. 57] 



SO-UE RARE BIRDS' EGGS. 

 /^N comparing the numerous works which have 

 ^-^ appeared of late years on British birds with their 

 predecessors of a couple of decades or more ago, we 

 cannot fail to be struck with the great diminution in the 

 number of species whose eggs and 

 nests are stated to be unknown. .\nd 

 since the appearance of even the more 

 recent of these, one more gap has 

 been filled up by the announcement 

 of the discovery by Mr. Popham, last 

 July, on an island in the mouth of 

 the Yenisei, of the long-sought eggs 

 of the curlew-sandpiper ( Tringa sub- 

 arquaia). By this fortunate discovery 

 the number of species entitled, even 

 by the utmost stretch of courtesy, to 

 be included in the British list whose 

 eggs still remain unknown, is very 

 small indeed, although there are 

 several species of which the known 

 specimens are extremely i^vi. Of 

 course there are a host of foreign 

 birds whose nidification awaits dis- 

 covery, but to mention even a portion 

 of these would obviously be impossible 

 within the limits of an ordinary article. 

 The majority of the British species 

 whose breeding haunts offered the 

 longest resistance to the efforts of 

 egg-hunters, were those which mi- 

 grate at this season to the desolate 

 Arctic tundras ; and among the eager 

 explorers of the avifauna of those 

 regions the name of John Wolley will always stand pre- 

 eminent, ably as^his pioneer efforts have been seconded 

 and completed by men of the stamp of the late Mr. H. 

 Seebohm and Colonel Feilden, to say nothing of many 

 equally enthusiastic and capable observers. At the 

 present day one of the great fields 

 remaining for exploration are the 

 breeding areas of many of the species 

 inhabiting the southern hemisphere. 



In many respects birds' eggs have 

 proved a somewhat disappointing 

 study, since, if we except their aid in 

 bringing about the recognition of the 

 mtimate structural affinities existing 

 oetween the Limicolae and the GavitC, 

 they have afforded comparatively little 

 assistance in unravelling the tangled 

 skein of avian relationships. .'\n4 

 many of the generalisations which 

 have been drawn from them, such as 

 •^hose relating to white eggs, have 

 turned out to be true only in part. 

 Moreover, it is unlikely that thos^ 

 remaining to be discovered will ad4 

 anything really important to our stock 

 of knowledge. The newly-disgovered 

 eggs of the curlew-sandpiper, for ex^ 

 arnple, do not differ from those of the 

 allied forms in any more important 

 degree than do the different postage- 

 stamps of the same issue. 



Not that the quest of birds' eggs is 

 in any way to be discouraged — far 

 from it. While the eggs themselves, 

 from the intrinsic beauty of their shape 

 and coloration, form a never-ending source of delight to 

 the collector, it is only through the energy of the hunter 

 after these spails that a knowledge of the habits of the birds 

 themselves can ever be attained. In the words of Prof. A. 

 Newton, it is the field naturalist who alone crowns the 



[Copyright. 



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