WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



owls are migratory, but others are not. Two or 

 three of our sand-pipers breed all over the country, 

 and the woodcock hardly leaves us, yet many of 

 their near relatives hasten each spring from the 

 equator to far beyond the arctic circle, and back 

 again in the fall; some going on, indeed, to Pata- 

 gonia, while their European congeners may nestle 

 in Siberia and spend their off-months in Cape Col- 

 ony. A few of our wood-warblers reside continu- 

 ously in the Southern States, and several breed in 

 the more northerly parts of the Union, yet other 

 warblers winter only in the middle tropics and 

 never breed south of Hudson Bay; and these are 

 among the smallest and weakest of birds. 



Here let me note, in passing, that very few species 

 of birds — indeed, perhaps less than a dozen in the 

 whole world—are known to breed in their winter 

 homes, during their absence from our latitudes; 

 and they are included in the few which travel clear 

 past the tropics to the south temperate zone; and 

 there are none, unless it be that world-wide wan- 

 derer, the golden plover and some of his cousins, 

 which regularly migrate both north and south from 

 the equator. The birds of the southern hemi- 

 sphere are almost wholly different from those of 

 the northern hemisphere, nor do they often meet 



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