Some Rare Birds' Eggs

Abstract

ON comparing the numerous works which have appeared of late years on British birds with their predecessors of a couple of decades or more ago, we cannot fail to be struck with the great diminution in the number of species whose eggs and nests are stated to be unknown. And since the appearance of even the more recent of these, one more gap has been filled up by the announcement of the discovery by Mr. Popham, last July, on an island in the mouth of the Yenisei, of the long-sought eggs of the curlew-sandpiper (Tringa sub-arquatd). By this fortunate discovery the number of species entitled, even by the utmost stretch of courtesy, to be included in the British list whose eggs still remain unknown, is very small indeed, although there are several species of which the known specimens are extremely few. Of course there are a host of foreign birds whose nidification awaits discovery, but to mention even a portion of these would obviously be impossible within the limits of an ordinary article. The majority of the British species whose breeding haunts offered the longest resistance to the efforts of egg-hunters, were those which migrate at this season to the desolate Arctic tundras; and among the eager explorers of the avifauna of those regions the name of John Wolley will always stand preeminent, ably as his pioneer efforts have been seconded and completed by men of the stamp of the late Mr. H. Seebohm and Colonel Feilden, to say nothing of many equally enthusiastic and capable observers. At the present day one of the great fields remaining for exploration are the breeding areas of many of the species inhabiting the southern hemisphere.