292 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



foregoing general Statements. A number of curious facts stir inquiry 

 in the mind of the the naturalist. For instance, about twenty-five 

 species of rails, plovers, and their allies — the order known as Limicola-, 

 are to be found, either summer or winter, in La Plata; but, surprising 

 as it may seem, at least thirteen of these are visitors from North Amer- 

 ica, spending the winter on the pampas, of the southern continent, 

 although all of them breed in summer — that is, our northern summer — 

 in the northern hemisphere, several of them in the remote Aretic 

 regions. These birds are great travellers, one might almost call them 

 "globe-trotters." 



This surely is an enigma — why these northeners pass over so many 

 countries, through such a variety of climates, where the conditions are 

 apparently suited to their needs, to spend their gala-time on the pam- 

 as of Argentina. "Nevertheless," as Dr. Hudson puts it, growing 

 eloquent in his wonder and admiration. "In September, and even as 

 early as August, they begin to arrive on the pampas, the golden plov- 

 er often still wearing his black nuptial dress; singly and in pairs, in 

 small fiocks and in clouds they come, curlew, godwit, plover, tatler, 

 tringa, piping the wild notes to which the Greenlander listened in June, 

 now to the gaucho herdsman on the green plains of La Plata, then to 

 the wild Indian in his remote village; and soon, further south, to the 

 houseless huanaco-hunter in the gray wilderness of Patagonia." Anoth- 

 er matter that excites surprise is that, while many of our North Amer- 

 ican birds go south of the equator to spend their holiday season, none 

 of the distinctly South American species, so far as known, ever venture 

 so far north as the United States, though summer may smile her 

 Wandest. One would have to seek far to find the reason why northern 

 birds are greater travellers than their southern kindred. 



There are other problems of migration that puzzle the ornithologist 

 in South America, as well as excite his interest to a white heat. A 

 species of godwit and several kinds of plovers are divided into tvvo 

 brigades, the northern and southern. The northern division spending 

 the southern summer in La Plata on the pampas, and when March 

 comes, starting off on their journey to the far north, crossing the 

 equator, the Gulf of Mexico, the United Srates, and sometimes breed- 

 ing in the Aretic regions as far north as latititude 82 degrees. Then, 

 some time after they have left La Plata, the southern division of the 

 army, consisting of the same species, arrives from the south, and spends 

 the South American winter on the pampas. The crucial question is: 

 Where do the southern birds breed? Being strong-winged birds, it 

 would be Strange if they did not go farther south than Patagonia, mak- 

 ing a migratory journey of only some eight hundred miles, while many 



