SIBERIA IX EUROPE. 



ciiAr. i. 



occupied a large share of the attention of ornithologists. 

 The name of John Wolley stands pre-eminent amongst the 

 discoverers in this department of science. His indefatigable 

 labours in Lapland about twenty years ago are still fresh in 

 the memory of the present generation of ornithologists, who 

 will never cease to regret his untimely death. Notwith- 

 standing his researches, there remained half-a-dozen well- 

 known British birds whose breeding-grounds still con- 

 tinued wrapt in mystery, to solve which has been the 

 ambition of many field naturalists during the past twenty 

 years. These birds, to the discovery of whose eggs special 

 interest seemed to attach, were the Grey Plover, the Little 

 Stint, the Sanderling, the Curlew Sandpiper, the Knot,* and 

 Bewick's Swan. 



* The Knot (Trii itus, Linn.) 



was the only one of those six species 

 of birds which we did not meet with 

 in the valley of the Petchora. It pro- 

 bablj breeds on the shores of the Polar 

 basin in both hemispheres, but its eggs 

 are absolutely unknown. On several 

 peditions the knot has 

 ed daring the breeding 

 season, bat no eggs were obtained. 

 ' 'aptain Fielden w rites ( Nares' ' Vo] 

 t" the Polar Sea,' Appendix, vol. ii. 

 p. •- , r_'): "During the month of July 

 my companions and I often endea- 

 voured td discover the nest of this 

 bird : but none of as were successful. 

 However, on July 30, 1876, the day 

 before we broke out of our winter 

 quarters [in lat. 82J°], where we had 

 n frozen in eleven months, three of 



our seamen, walking by the border of 

 a small lake not far from the ship. 

 came upon an old bird accompanied by 

 three nestlings, which they brought to 

 me. The old bird proved to he a male ; 

 its stomach and those of the young 

 ones were filled with inserts. . . . The 

 knot bred in the vicinity of Discovery 

 Bay, but no eggs were found there, 

 though the young were obtained in all 

 es of plumage." During the winter 

 the knot is almost cosmopolitan in its 

 range. It is exceedingly common on t hi 

 shores of Great Britain, and is more 

 or less frequently obtained in various 

 parts of Europe, Africa, South Asia, and 

 >'\ en in Australia and New Zealand. Oil 

 the American continent it is found on 

 both coasts., occasionally straying as far 

 as the South American shores. 



