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Art. XXVII.— Our Migratory Birds. 

 By Captain F. W. Hutton, F.E.S. 



[Presidential Addiess to the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury r 



3rd April, 1901.] 



In the Northern Hemisphere the migration of birds in the 

 autumn and spring is so common an occurrence that it has 

 been known from time immemorial, but it is only of late years 

 that the migrations have been followed in detail. 



All the migrating-birds of the Northern Hemisphere breed 

 in their most northern district and fly south before the cold 

 of winter comes on. The land- and water-birds do not fly 

 far, only into warmer or subtropical regions ; but the shore- 

 birds, such as the curlews, plovers, sandpipers — known as the 

 Limnicolce. — wander much further, and travel down the shores 

 of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, often crossing the equator 

 into the Southern Hemisphere before halting. One such 

 stream leaves eastern Siberia and, passing through China 

 and Japan — where it picks up the southern snipe and the 

 red-capped dotterel— continues to fly through the Malayan 

 Archipelago into Australia and Tasmania, those birds which 

 do not die on the way returning annually to their breeding- 

 ground in Siberia and Kamtchatka. This statement may 

 seem at first startling, or even incredible, but we must 

 remember that a bird could easily travel from Kamtchatka 

 to Tasmania in a month ; so that, after the breeding- 

 season was over in the Northern Hemisphere, there would 

 be ample time for globe-trotting if the bird felt so inclined. 



In the Southern Hemisphere a corresponding migration 

 occurs : swifts, swallows, cuckoos, and quail migrate in Aus- 

 tralia and Tasmania ; while in South America swallows, hum- 

 ming-birds, and several others, including some shore-birds, 

 after breeding in Patagonia, travel annually to Paraguay and 

 Brazil. However, as the area of land in the temperate and 

 cold zones in the Southern Hemisphere is small, these migra- 

 tions are insignificant when compared with those of the 

 Northern Hemisphere, and have attracted but little atten- 

 tion. 



Stragglers from these migrating flocks often lose their 

 way and turn up in unexpected places, while non-migratory 

 birds sometimes get blown out to sea by gales of wind and 

 become involuntary stragglers. 



In addition to these there are some birds which may 

 be called wanderers, or occasional wanderers — that is, birds- 



