The Zoologist — March, 1873. 3449 



these M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards informs me he is inclined to refer to the 

 " Gelinotte" mentioned by Leguat, the nature of which has hitherto been 

 only open to guess. There are also bones of other species of birds, perhaps 

 only inferior to this in interest. Most of these specimens have been entrusted 

 to the care of M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards, for my brother and I believe 

 that the distinguished author of ' Oiseaux Fossiles de la France' has esta- 

 blished a claim upon the assistance of all who are interested in extinct 

 Ornithology by that admirable work of his ; and I learn from him that he 

 •will shortly make public the results of these recent discoveries. — Alfred 

 Newton. 



Arctic Angaries.':' — During the discussion which followed the reading of 

 a paper on the Renewal of Arctic Exploration, at the last meeting of the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Science, Mr. Francis Galton, 

 F.R.S., the President of the Geographical Section, in which the paper was 

 read, did me the honour of asking me to state to the audience what 

 zoological discoveries might be reasonably expected to be made in the 

 regions hitherto hitherto unvisited by Arctic expeditions. To this re- 

 quest I had to reply that I felt my inability then to deal with a 

 subject so extensive, though I was prepared to believe that in no part 

 of the world would investigations, conducted by competent zoologists, 

 meet with a richer reward than in the seas or lands situated beyond the 

 limits as yet reached by the hardy adventurers in this direction. However, 

 not to disappoint a large and deeply-interested assembly, I hazarded some 

 remarks which, if they did not exactly answer the demand of the President^ 

 seemed to me to suggest reasons for further circumpolar exploration ; and as 

 these remarks have not to my knowledge appeared in print, I venture to 

 reproduce them here, in the hope of their being found interesting to some 

 of the readers of this journal. Instead of forecasting the nature of zoological 

 discoveries which might or might not be made by those whose good fortune 

 may lead them to unexplored regions, why should we not see what light is 

 thrown upon those regions by the zoological knowledge we possess ? The 

 shores of the British Islands, and of many other countries in the northern 

 hemisphere, are annually, for a longer or shorter period, frequented by a 

 countless multitude of our fellow-creatures, who, there is every reason to 

 believe, resort in summer to very high northern latitudes, for purposes the 

 most important, and, since they continue the practice year after year, one 

 may confidently suppose they find the migration conducive to their ad- 

 vantage. K this supposition be correct, it may not be out of place to 

 consider what attracts these creatures to regions so remote. First of all, 

 there must be some water which is not always frozen ; secondly, there must 

 be some land on which they may set their feet; and thirdly, there must be 



• From the February number of 'Ocean Highways.' Communicated by the 

 author. 



