THE JOUENEYINGS OF BIRDS. 333 



sky and water, they make their way with the precision of a rifle bullet, 

 and it would seem at hardly less speed. 



The plovers, sandpipers and kindred species take migratory journeys 

 often of extraordinary length. Thus the American golden plover 

 {Charadrius dominicus) breeds in Arctic America and migrates 

 through the entire length of North and South America to its winter 

 home in Patagonia. The little sanderling just mentioned is almost 

 cosmopolitan in distribution, breeding in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions 

 and migrating in the New World to Chile and Patagonia, a distance 

 of eight thousand miles, and in the Old World along all the shores of 

 Europe, Asia and Africa. The Bartramian sandpiper {Bartramia 

 longicauda) nests from eastern North America to Nova Scotia and 

 Alaska, and goes south in winter to southern South America. The 

 solitary sandpiper {Totanus solitarius) breeds mainly to the north of 

 the United States and winters as far south as Brazil and Peru. The 

 buff-breasted sandpiper (Tryngites suhruficollis) rears its young in the 

 Yukon district of Alaska and from the interior of British Columbia to 

 the Arctic coast, and journeys in winter well into South America. The 

 turnstone {Arenaria interpres) , a little shore bird about the size of the 

 song thrush of Europe, is also cosmopolitan, breeding in high northern 

 latitudes and at other times of the year being found along the coast of 

 Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America to the Straits of 

 Magellan, Australia and the Atlantic and Pacific islands. It is one of 

 the species mentioned as making the wonderful flight from islands in 

 the Bering Sea to the Hawaiian Islands. 



The ducks form another interesting group, although their journeys 

 during the migrations are not nearly as extended as the birds just 

 mentioned. The larger number breed mainly to the north of the 

 United States and many within the Arctic Circle. Certain species, as 

 the eider duck, only come south in winter to the coast of northern 

 Maine, others, as the old squaw, may reach the Potomac and the Ohio, 

 while most of them, as the bald-pate, blue-winged teal, pin-tail, golden- 

 eye, bufflehead, etc., visit Mexico, Guatemala, northern South America 

 or the West Indies. 



Certain of the familiar birds of lawn, hedgerow and fleld, for whose 

 coming we watch so anxiously, may claim a moment's attention. The 

 bobolink, so dear to the hearts of the residents of New England, makes 

 his appearance in his summer home in May. By the last of July or 

 the first part of x^ugiist the young are reared, the old males have lost 

 their bright dress, and with a musical cMnTc as their only note, they 

 start southward. In the region of the Chesapeake they begin to con- 

 gregate in vast flocks, where they are known as reed-birds, but in a 

 few weeks they pass on to the rice fields of the South to become the 

 dreaded rice-bird. But by October the last one has disappeared, and 



