IGO 
president’s address. 
geographical distribution. As for as we know, this Sea-Cow was 
confined to a limited area in Bering Sea; and we are indebted 
to the Eussian naturalist, Steller, for almost all that we know 
of its habits. That this animal was out of place in the cold waters 
that surround Bering Island is evident from the narrative of 
Steller. It got badly cut and bruised by the ice, and in winter 
became so lean that it was possible to count its vertebra3 and 
ribs. Living as it did on the sea-weed attached to the shore, 
it was evidently unsuited to cope with the rigours of a cold sea 
and frozen littoral. Is it likely that this Sea-Cow left the warm 
tropics to endure the cold of Bering Sea? I think not. More 
jirobably it was originally an inhabitant of a Polar sea, in warm 
Miocene times, and retreated through Bering Straits, driven 
soutliAvard by the freezing of the Polar area, its soutliAvard 
extension possibly being limited by the absence of the sea ware 
on which it existed. 
In the Arctic regions we find among the birds two species of 
highly specialized Gulls, circumpolar in their distribution, and only 
appearing by accident as very rare stragglers in the temperate zone. 
I refer to the species Pagopliila and Rliotlostethia. The same train 
of reasoning as applies to the mammals, may Avith equal force 
be adduced in favour of their origin in the same area. Similar 
vieAVS to these I enunciated some eight years ago in the pages of a 
Zoological magazine;* and lately, in the same journal, the av ell- 
known ornithologist Mr. Henry Seebohm has published a paper, f 
pointing out that the distribution of the species in the genus 
Hcematopus, or Oystercatchers, can only be satisfactorily accounted 
for by the supposition that the common ancestor of the Oyster- 
catchers Avas an inhabitant of the North Polar area. He remarks 
in the conclusion of his essay : “ We can trace almost AAuth 
certainty the routes Avhich the various parties took on their 
emigration from the shores of the Polar basin.” Did time permit, 
I could offer for your consideration numerous analogous arguments. 
If this theory of the existence of a Polar continent in Miocene 
* ‘ The Zoologist,’ 1878. 
t Ihid. 188G, pp. 41-49. 
