The knot, or sandpiper, is something half-way between a snipe and a plover. It is a very active and graceful bird, with rather long legs, moderately long wings, and a very short tail. It swims admirably, but is not often seen in the water; preferring to assemble with its fellows on the sandy sea-shores, where it gropes in the sand for food, or fishes in the rock-pools and shallow waters for the small crustaceans. It is known both as the red and the ash-coloured sandpiper, because it changes the colour of its plumage according to the season of the year; a bright red in summer, a sober ashen-gray in winter. Now, in the spring the knot seeks our island in immense flocks, and after remaining on the coasts for about a fortnight, can be traced proceeding gradually northwards, until it finally takes leave of us. It has been noticed in Iceland and Greenland, but not to stay; the summer there would be too rigorous for its liking, and it goes further and further north. Whither? Where does it build its nest, and hatch its young? We lose all trace of it for some weeks: what becomes of it? Towards the end of summer back it comes to us in larger flocks than before, and both old birds and young birds remain upon our coasts until November, or, in mild seasons, even later. Then it wings its flight to the south, and luxuriates in blue skies and balmy airs until the following spring, when it resumes the order of its migrations. Commenting upon these facts, Professor Newton infers that the lands visited by the knot in the middle of summer are less sterile than Iceland or Greenland; for certainly it would not pass over these countries, which are known to be the breeding-places for swarms of water-birds, to resort to regions not so well provided with supplies of food. The _food_, however, chiefly depends on the _climate_. Wherefore we conclude that beyond the northern tracts already explored lies a region enjoying in summer a climate more genial than they possess. Do any races of men with which we are now unacquainted inhabit the Unknown Region? Mr. Markham observes that although scarcely one-half of the Arctic world has been explored, yet numerous traces of former inhabitants have been found in wastes which are at present abandoned to the silence and solitude. Man would seem to migrate as well as the inferior animals, and it is possible that tribes may be dwelling in the mysterious inner zone between the Pole and the known Polar countries.