46 
Introduction ; Migration. 
the Bay of Bengal. Sturnia violacea^ for instance, is not known from the con- 
tinent of Asia, but breeds in Japan, from where it seems to fly directly in 
autumn to the Philippines, Borneo, N. Celebes and the Moluccas. Muscicapa 
griseosticta and Locustella fasciolata breed in North China or N. E. Asia and occur 
in winter in the East Indies which are washed by the Pacific, as far as New 
Guinea and ^ the Moluccas, respectively. Heteractitis h'evipes wanders in winter 
down the West Pacific coasts from unknown breeding grounds in the high North 
as far south as Australia. A remarkable traveller across the Pacific is seen in 
Limosa novaezealandiae ; this bird has been found breeding in Alaska and Arctic 
Siberia, and it visits New Zealand in great numbers in winter, the majority of 
individuals apparently flying directly across the Pacific without making use of 
the East Indies as a resting-place, for the number of examples recorded from 
there is comparatively very small (see p. 794). In the case of this species, as 
also in that of the Pacific Cuckoo, TJrodynamis taitiensis (Sparrm.), it is perhaps 
erroneous to attempt to avoid the assumption of a “sense of direction”. Still 
ocular remembrance of the sparsely scattered atolls and high islands of the 
Pacific on which the birds may land or pass over, together with the positions 
of the sun and stars at certain hours, and the direction of the roll of the waves 
should not be left out of account as a means by which they may alter and 
regulate their course over hundreds of miles of trackless ocean (see Mobius: 
“Ein Beitr. z. Erage iib. d. Orientirung der wandernden Vogel”: Ausland 1 882 p. 648). 
Migration south of the equator. — Professor Newton remarks (D. B. 555): 
“If the relative proportion of land to water in the southern hemisphere were 
at all such as it is in the northern we should no doubt find the birds of southern 
continents beginning to press upon the tropical and equatorial regions of the 
globe at the season when they were thronged with emigrants from the north 
... but we know almost nothing of the migration of birds in the other hemi- 
sphere”. In this comment — very true, apparently, in regard to the compara- 
tively small amount of migration south of the equator — Prof. Newton has 
almost overlooked a great point of difference in northern and southern mi- 
gration, namely that the birds of the South proceed towards the equator in the 
time of our summer and leave the tropics again for their breeding quarters 
about the time that the equatorial countries are invaded by the migrants from 
the North. The southern territories which call for consideration in this book 
(the East Indies and Australia) have furnished very few thorough - going 
migrants; it is certain that the number is very small compared with that of the 
northern hemisphere, but there is also a regrettable lack here of competent 
observers and of published observations. One or two passages relating to mi- 
gration across the Torres Straits seem to show that among the islands here it 
is possible that a second Heligoland may be found some day. Bemarks to this 
effect are made in Moseley’s ‘Naturalist on the “Challenger”’, 1879, p. 364: 
“Most of the birds of Cape York are constantly migrating, and the resident 
official at Somerset told me that the constant change from month to month of 
