Ixxxiv 



CLIMATE AND CHANGES. 



is slightly to the north of the tropic of Cancer. The crust of the earth 

 shrinking from cooling, opens fissures through which the waters enter. 

 Steam is generated, and this sudden expansion causes earthquakes and 

 eruptions of volcanoes. The Italian papers stated during the Vesuvian 

 eruption that the sea at Barletto fell two feet, and the same was noticed 

 at Naples — about two feet of a fall. We may conjecture that millions 

 of tons of water had got into the bowels of the earth, and according to 

 Sir Hiram ^laxim the steam would extend to far-distant places, as it did to 

 Formosa, San Francisco, and Hecla. 



"The waters of the Mediterranean are getting deeper and the Alps higher. 

 This is the general tendency, according to Professor Geikie. 



"Like a concertina the folds get deeper as it is pressed close, the ridges 

 higher, Stromboli, a volcanic island near Sicily, and Isalco in Central 

 America, are always active : Vesuvius and Fusiama are intermittent volcanoes. 

 Etna and Vesuvius in their earlier eruptions — before 79 a.d. — were cast up 

 from the bed of the sea. The sea then retired from the great valley of the 

 Po. Italy and Sicily had then acquired theu' present extent. 



" A remarkable upheaval took place two years ago in the Bay of Naples : 

 fish were cast ashore by the sea, and this was accompanied by a storm of 

 wind. On a Sunday morning about the same time the atmosphere 

 became heated and lurid, and a thick haze appeared that afternoon; the 

 ' blood-shower,' as it was caUed, fell. This was probably from some up- 

 heaval in the Atlantic. Vesuvius was quiet at the time, and Sahara always 

 sends sand of a tawny hue. Before the eruption of Vesuvius, about the 

 middle of March 1906, an island near Palermo sank so low that the Italian 

 Government had the 1000 convicts removed, and 200 others." 



MAPS OF STARLING, TUFTED DUCK, AND LITTLE 

 AUK'S DISPERSAL. 



I wish shortly to draw attention to what may be called a new 

 feature in this volume, or, if that be considered too grandiloquent a 

 name for it, a new departure in illustration ; or a suggestion of a 

 new direction of inquiry, as an aid to the study of migration, dis- 

 persal, and distribution. 



I mean the three outline maps I give under Starling, Tufted Duck, 

 and Little Auk. 



That of the Starling represents an early dispersal in Shetland, 

 Orkney, the north coast of the mainland, and the Outer Hebrides, 

 which indicates much the same route or "line of flight" as that 

 followed by so many of our " birds as travellers " at the present 



