180 MiaRAHON AND DISTRIBUTION 



Thanks for your annotated copy of the Rednecked 

 Flareup [Phalarope] ; but some of the questions you ask 

 are easier put than answered. What is " Arctic " in one 

 longitude may be only " Subarctic " in another ; and as 

 for " Boreal " or even " Polar,", the meaning assigned to 

 them (especially the former) depends much on the fancy 

 of the inquirer. There can't be a doubt, I think, that 

 Phalaroptts fuHcarius has a more northern range than 

 P. hyperboreus, and might be almost justifiably called 

 " Polar " ; yet it does breed, as I have every reason to 

 beheve, in the S.W. corner of Iceland, a good way short 

 of the Arctic Circle. One does not know what to make 

 of these things, or whether there is any use in labelling 

 such or such a species as " Polar," " Arctic " and the 

 like. 



I wish one knew what ordinarily becomes of the 

 multitudes of Phalaropes of either species when they 

 come southward at the end of summer. Occasionally 

 something goes wrong and then they occur here (two, if 

 not three, Grey Phalaropes were one autumn killed in the 

 Cam at the bottom of the gardens of this college, not 300 

 yards from where I am now writing, 15 or 20 years ago), 

 there and everywhere, and ingenious persons sit down to 

 compile a " wreck chart ; " it would be more to the 

 purpose to know the course of their successful voyages. 

 Do they, like other Limicolcs, -wing their way by night 

 unseen of us to Southern waters ; or do they herd with 

 the millions of , Rotches, Brunnich's Guillemots, and so 

 on, in some parts of the Atlantic rarely visited or never 

 by the observing ornithologist ? 



It is interesting to read of " record bags " of Wood- 

 cocks and so forth in Shetland or elsewhere, but depend 

 upon it those are the exceptional events in the economy 

 of a species, the very fact of their being " records " proves 

 that, but (I humbly think) proves very little else. 



This afternoon we had a snowstorm, and in half an 

 hour what seemed to be nearly an inch of snow fell, but 

 that only shows what the weather when it has a mind to 

 be malicious can do ; but it is not in the ordinary course 



