280 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
It will be noticed from the foregoing pages that many birds 
traverse enormous distances in their annual migrations. The 
American Golden Plover and the Curlew Stint travel between 
the Arctic Circle and the South Temperate Zone. Other 
species perform journeys not so extended, but still very 
wonderful when one considers how fragile and apparently 
weak-winged many of them are. The Himalayas and the 
desolate high-lying plateaux north of them are crossed by 
numbers of Shrikes, Pipits, and the most diminutive little 
Warblers. A small Australasian species of Cuckoo winters 
in Eastern, Australia, and summers 1,200 miles across the open 
ocean in New Zealand ; the tiny Gold-crested Wren regulary 
braves the crossing of the North Sea. 
A rather curious fact is brought to light when examining the 
distances travelled by various species, and even by different 
birds of the same species. Birds which breed the furthest north 
often winter the furthest south. I have already exemplified 
this in the case of the Curlew Stint and Golden Plover. Here 
the species as a whole performs a long journey. But take the 
case of the European race of the common Swallow, Hirundo 
rustica. In the summer it is found breeding throughout 
Europe, from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia. Some 
specimens also breed in North Africa. The winter quarters 
lie in Africa, south of the Sahara right down to Cape Town 
but a few birds winter in the North African oases. The 
Swallow happens to be a day migrant, which performs its 
journey leisurely, and its movements northwards can, there- 
fore, be timed accurately. Birds which breed in England 
begin to appear there as early as the end of March, and most of 
them have come by the end of April. These birds appear on 
the North African coast at the end of February, and through 
March and early April they are crossing Spain and France. 
Now most of the birds which winter in Cape Colony do not 
leave that part of the world until March, so they cannot 
possibly be the birds which are then crossing South-western 
Europe. During May, for some time after our English birds 
have settled down to breed, Swallows on passage are met with 
along the English east coast migration routes. They reach 
Shetland about the end of May and early June. Some breed 
