6 JANUARY 



Melville Peninsula, and Grinnel Land; and later, 

 General Greely took from the ovary of a knot shot 

 in Discovery Bay ' a completely formed hard-shelled 

 egg ready to be laid.' Nevertheless, no authentic 

 specimen of a knot's egg is known to exist in any 

 collection. Those who know the stringent nature 

 of an oologist's quest will best understand the sig- 

 nificance of that fact. Of the curlew-sandpiper's 

 breeding-ground absolutely nothing is known. 



Now consider how the knot spends its existence. 

 Leaving the Polar lands on the approach of winter, 

 vast multitudes of this little bird, scarcely bigger than 

 a common snipe, pass southward through Europe, 

 Asia, and America, lingering a while on our shores, 

 as well as elsewhere in the temperate zone, then 

 moving on and on, over such prodigious space that, 

 before they turn northward again on the approach 

 of spring, many of them have penetrated to Surinam, 

 Brazil, South Africa, China, and even to Queensland 

 and New Zealand. Not the least marvellous feature 

 in this annual journey is that it is not the old birds 

 that lead the way, but the earliest flights to arrive 

 on our shores in autumn are composed entirely of 

 young birds on their first trip. 



Herr Gatke has noticed something of the same 



