XL] 
TPIE ARRIVAL OF MIGRATORY BIRDS. 
41 
those in which they mainly appear on the northern horizon. In 
the area next the aurora-pole only the smaller, in middle 
Scandinavia only the larger, more irregularly formed luminous 
crowns are seen. But in the latter region, as in southern 
British America, aurora storms and ray and drapery auroras are 
instead common, and these appear to lie nearer the surface of the 
earth than the arc aurora. Most of the Polar expeditions have 
wintered so near the aurora-pole that the common aurora arc 
there lay under or quite near the horizon, and as the ray aurora 
appears to occur seldom within 
this circle, the reason is easily 
explained why the winter night 
was so seldom illuminated by the 
aurora at the winter quarters of 
these expeditions, and why the 
description of this phenomenon 
plays so small a part in their 
sketches of travel. 
SONG-BIRDS IN THE RIGGING OF THE “ VEGA.” 
May 1879. 
Long before the ground be¬ 
came bare and mild weather 
commenced, migratory birds be¬ 
gan to arrive: first the snow¬ 
bunting on the 23rd April, then 
large flocks of geese, eiders, long¬ 
tailed ducks, gulls, and several 
kinds of waders and song-birds. 
First among the latter was the little elegant Sylvia Ewers- 
manni, which in the beginning of May settled in great flocks 
on the only dark spot which was yet to be seen in the quarter 
—the black deck of the Vega. All were evidently much 
exhausted, and the first the poor things did was to look out 
convenient sleeping places, of which there is abundance in the 
rigging of a vessel when small birds are concerned. I need 
