4 JANUARY 



in Sutherland and Caithness, where no lapwings 

 remain in winter; those that were bred on the 

 Northumberland moors last spring are disporting 

 themselves just now in Southern Europe, Africa, 

 and Asia. England happens to be situated just 

 where the two bodies of migrants, the northern- 

 bred birds and the southern, overlap ; consequently, 

 these species are never without representation on 

 our shores. 



And what is the suggestion which has begun to 

 glimmer on observers of these phenomena ? A very 

 startling one, in truth. The fact, now pretty well 

 established, that every bird known in our islands 

 breeds at the northern limit of its annual migration, 

 taken in connection with the invincible habit of 

 birds to return to their birthplaces for nesting, 1 

 seems to point to the Arctic Circle as the original 

 cradle of life. From the character of the fossil 

 flora of Franz Josef Land and Spitzbergen, it may 



1 A good instance of this conservative instinct has been given 

 by Professor Newton, as shown by a pair of stone curlews, a 

 species which haunts the open downs and nests in the barest 

 places. This pair had chosen a barren rabbit warren to rear their 

 young. The proprietor killed down the rabbits and planted up 

 the warren, yet still these stone curlews and their descendants 

 continued to resort to the place year after year, and reared their 

 young in the unfamiliar environment of dense woodland. 



