Scott on the Migration of Birds. 97 



ornithologists of my acquaintance measure either the tail or the 

 tarsus from precisely the same relative points. We are not told 

 that yft. defilippiana was actually compared with y&. mollis and 

 if extraneous data were alone made use of there is surely room for 

 a doubt in this connection. Again in respect to the bills there is 

 nothing to show whether the chord or the arc was measured. If 

 the latter (they simply say " rostr. a f route") the apparent dis- 

 crepancy would be pretty satisfactorily explained. 



In summing up the matter, it is perhaps enough to say that 

 y&strelata gularis finds its nearest known affine in ^M. defilip- 

 piana. To go further than this would be hazardous under the 

 present conditions of the case, but the relationship of the two 

 birds is so extremely close that larger suites of specimens may 

 confidently be expected to bridge over the slight differences which 

 now separate them. In such an event defilippiana, Giglioli and 

 Salvadori, 1869, will of course give place to gularis, Peale, 1S48. 

 In concluding, I quote in full all that Peale has handed down 

 to us relating to the life history of the species which he had the 

 honor to discover and describe. It is. so far as I know, the only 

 account that has ever been written. 



•• This bird was found amidst icebergs, buffeting the storms 

 and fogs of the Antartic regions. We saw but few of them, and 

 obtained but a single specimen, on the 21st of March, while the 

 .Ship Peacock was enveloped in a fog, latitude 6S° S., longitude 

 9^° W. of Greenwich. Their flight was easy and not very rapid. 

 They were silent, and alighted on the water to examine some 

 slips of paper and chips purposely thrown from the boat." * 



SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE MIGRATION 

 OF BIRDS. 



BY W. E. D. SCOTT. 



While showing some friends the astronomical observatory and 

 accessories connected with the College of New Jersey at Prince- 

 ton, on the night of October 19, 1880, after looking at a number 

 of objects through the nine-and-one-half inch equatorial, we were 



* U. S. Expl. Exp.. Zi 16I1 igy, p. 410. (Edition of 1858). 



