150 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
many days it has occupied may never be known. Most 
migrants either fly at night and rest in the day or vice 
versa, but the Plover flies both night and day. 
‘“« After a short stop of three or four weeks in the Antilles 
and on the northeastern coast of South America, the 
flocks disappear, and later their arrival is noted at the 
same time in southern Brazil and the whole prairie region 
of Argentina and Patagonia. Here they remain from 
September to March (the summer of the southern hemi- 
sphere), free from the responsibilities of the northern 
summer they have left. The native birds of Argentina 
are at the time engrossed in family cares; but, remember 
this well, no wayfarer from the north nests in the south; he 
has a second summer free from care! 
‘After a six months’ vacation the Plovers resume the 
serious affairs of life and start back toward the Arctic 
zone, but not by the same course. Their full northward 
route is a problem still unsolved. They disappear from 
Argentina and shun the whole Atlantic coast from Brazil 
to Labrador. In March they appear in Guatemala and 
Texas; April finds their long lines trailing across the 
prairies of the Mississippi valleys; the first of May sees 
them crossing our northern boundary; and by the first 
week in June they reappear at their breeding-grounds 
in the frozen North. What a journey! Eight thousand 
miles of latitude separates the extremes of their course, 
and 3000 miles of longitude constitutes the shorter 
diameter, and all for the sake of spending ten weeks on 
an Arctic coast! Do you realize this endurance when 
you see birds passing that window? 
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