238 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BOBBERS. 



the Dunlin in summer acquire black breasts, while the Red- 

 shank, Sanderling and several other Tringce remain white ? 

 Such questions will probably ever remain unsolved, though, 

 I suppose, by the Darwinian hypothesis, there should be 

 some " first cause " assignable, however remote, chimerical, 

 or shadowy it may be. 



But of the few practical problems still unsolved, there 

 remains the question : Where do the common Godwit, Knot, 

 Sanderling and Curlew-Sandpiper breed ? Whence come 

 they in myriad hosts every August to our shores ? That 

 none of these breed in Europe seems tolerably certain. 

 Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya certainly do not attract 

 them, nor does Franz-Josef Land appear in the least degree 

 likely to prove their incunabulum. The Grey Plover and 

 the Little Stint were formerly in the same category ; but 

 the Siberian explorations of Dr. von Middendorff and other 

 foreign naturalists, and, later, of our countrymen, Messrs. 

 Seebohm and Harvie-Brown, have removed both these species 

 from the list of " temporarily missing " : though, of the 

 four first-named species, little or nothing was seen. On the 

 American side of the Atlantic, the Knot and the Sanderling 

 have been discovered breeding on the North Georgian Islands, 

 on Smith Sound, and elsewhere ; but it is impossible that 

 all the millions of these birds can be of Transatlantic origin. 

 They must have some Old- World resort. 



Kindly, "general reader" (if you have so far borne with 

 me), give this matter a moment's consideration. It is not a 

 question merely of where certain birds' eggs are to be found, 

 but a mystery whose solution must interest any inquiring 

 mind. Here we have four kinds of birds, all four im- 

 mensely numerous as species, and two of them of tender 

 and delicate constitutions, intolerant of any great degree 

 of cold. They all pass to the northward of our islands 

 in May and return in August or September. During 

 this interval they have reared their young. Their natural 

 economy demands during this period of absence a region 

 where the climate is mild and warm a spot where plant 

 and insect-life abound. Their summer home can be no 

 small district their immense numbers preclude this. No 



