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Updated: June 19, 2025
Almost every year, one or two land-birds are blown across the whole Atlantic Ocean, from North America to the western shores of Ireland and England; but seeds could be transported by these wanderers only by one means, namely, in dirt sticking to their feet, which is in itself a rare accident.
From the fifth degree of south latitude to the Equator, we daily perceived signs of the neighbourhood of land. When we were exactly in 4° 15' latitude, and 178° longitude, heavy gales brought swarms of butterflies and small land-birds to the ship; we must therefore have been near land, but we looked for it in vain; and this discovery remains for some future navigator.
At Tristan d'Acunha, where, according to Carmichael, there are only two land-birds, there is a coot. From these facts I believe that the waders, after the innumerable web-footed species, are generally the first colonists of small isolated islands.
The men had come back from their work on shore with branches of green pine and holly, and the women had, stuck them about the ship, not without tearful thoughts of old home-places, where their childhood fathers and mothers did the same. Bits and snatches of Christmas carols were floating all around the ship, like land-birds blown far out to sea.
The sea-birds are always looking for a place to rest upon, and they would soon find it, and then their droppings would, in course of time, form a little patch above water, and other floating substances would be thrown on it; and land-birds, who are blown out to sea, might rest themselves on it, and the seeds from their stomachs, when dropped, would grow into trees or bushes." "I understand that."
At long intervals flying-fish skittered over the water like skipping-stones. Shoals of porpoises came in from outside, leaping clumsily along the edges of the kelp. Bewildered land-birds perched on the schooner's rigging, and in the early morning the whistling of quail could be heard on shore near where a little fresh-water stream ran down to meet the ocean.
There are few land-birds on Canvey Island, because there are few trees. Some greenfinches, a whinchat or two, almost no pipits or larks, and very few sparrows. The shore-birds are numerous and increasing, for the Essex County Council strictly protect all the eggs and birds during the breeding season.
Again, at Tristan d'Acunha in the Atlantic, Carmichael states that the only two land-birds, a thrush and a bunting, were "so tame as to suffer themselves to be caught with a hand-net." "Linnean Transactions" volume 12 page 496. This case is the more strange, because it is asserted that some of the same species in their winter-quarters in the United States are tame. There is much, as Dr.
The sea-birds are always looking for a place to rest upon, and they would soon find it, and then their droppings would, in course of time, form a little patch above water, and other floating substances would be thrown on it; and land-birds, who are blown out to sea, might rest themselves on it, and the seeds from their stomachs, when dropped, would grow into trees or bushes." "I understand that."
The far greater peculiarity of the land-birds, namely, twenty-five out of twenty-six being new species, or at least new races, compared with the waders and web-footed birds, is in accordance with the greater range which these latter orders have in all parts of the world.
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