GREAT KNOT. 
represent, even to the eye of the observer, a locality essentially different from 
those in the tundra of the plain. For such a sensitive organism as that of the 
bird, this difference in the conditions of its habitation, from which, moreover, 
depends its very existence, is even more striking. 
The Great Knot undoubted^ represents an old relic for the following 
reasons:— 
i. The breeding area is, evidently, very limited. 
n. In its capacity of an Alpine inhabitant the Great Knot stands quite 
alone, in a line of its nearest allies, the Sandpipers, and at the same time stands 
as solitary in the very poor Alpine fauna of the mountains of the extreme 
North-east of Siberia. 
m. It is a scarce bird in Anadyr Land, so it may be surmised that 
the species is at present represented by a comparatively small number of 
individuals. 
iv. The difference in the conditions of its habitation is very great during, 
roughly speaking, the three months of the breeding-season, when the bird requires 
very specific conditions, and afterwards, during the nine months when it descends 
to the sea-level and has to make the best of the diversity of the ecological 
environment peculiar to the coasts from Anaydr to Australia, or North-west 
India. 
v. The length of the migration route is inordinately long and inconsistent 
with the limited area of the breeding grounds. At the same time the migration 
route is perfectly established. 
All these peculiarities must be characterized as survivals; they bear 
the accumulated marks of the changes of different periods of its life in the past. 
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