title="[39]"/> threes or scores, and at night in large numbers. The other is an observation of a "bird wave" by Mr P. Cox, during a snow storm in 1885 at Newcastle, New Brunswick. The birds passed eastward in a column about twenty-five yards wide, some just above the trees, others hardly visible, but the bulk in a massed column directly over the margin of the shore, and not over the river or meadow on either side. The movement was continuous for about two hours.

Dr I. A. Palmén was the great upholder of routes in the Old World, but his routes were largely speculative; they were founded on a considerable knowledge of migratory birds, but not sufficient to cover the vast area mapped out (39). Until a very large band of workers, working on similar lines all the world over, accumulate a sufficient mass of evidence as to which birds do or do not pass their various stations, with the times at which they appear, accurate knowledge of the routes of birds is impossible.

Von Middendorf collected statistics of the passage of birds in the Russian Empire, and by reckoning the average date of arrival of a few species at certain points of observation, worked out a number of curves or lines which he calls "isepipteses," or lines of simultaneous arrival (35). The result was, according to his argument, a general convergence northwards; the birds passing through Central Siberia travelled roughly in spring from south to north, in Eastern Siberia from south-east to north-west, and in Europe from south-west to north-east; they converged, in fact, upon the Taimyr Peninsula. This to some extent is doubtless true, but Middendorf goes on to prove that the magnetic pole is situated in this Peninsula and that the birds are drawn thither by magnetic influence, "in spite of wind, weather, night or cloud." He calls them "sailors of the air," possessed of an internal magnetic influence. He supports his argument by the statement that there is a similar convergence in North America towards the magnetic pole of the western hemisphere.