ADDENDUM 



TO 



Section I>.— Blolog'y. 



16.— ON THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF 

 THE AUSTRALIAN LIMICOLjE. 



By Lt.-Colonel LEGGE, F.Z.S,, M.B.O.U,, late F.L.S., C.M.A.O.U., &c. 



The LimicolcB, or so-called " Waders " and shore birds, are 

 perhaps the most interesting members of our avi-fauna. The 

 Sand-pipers and Shore-plovers, which form the bulk of this 

 order, are elegant and graceful birds, and in addition to these 

 personal characteristics they number in their ranks species 

 whose great wing-power has developed in them to the 

 highest extent a wandering nature and a persistent propensity 

 for roaming over vast expanses of our globe, which cannot 

 fail to excite interest in all who love bird-hfe. Combhied 

 with these traits is the wonderful instinct of migration, 

 which annually sends them southwards from their northern 

 breeding-grounds, and locates them for a season on our 

 coasts, until it again drives them back to rear their young 

 once more hi the north. 



Among the Shore-birds of Australia are to be found the 

 greatest roamers of the family, such as the Grey Plover, the 

 Turnstone, the Curlew Stint, the Whimbrel, the Knot, and 

 several other species, whose annual arrival or casual occur- 

 rence on our coasts is always looked forward to by Australian 

 naturalists. This wandering propensity is, however, not 

 possessed by all the Australian members of this family, for, 

 as will be seen in the course of my remarks, there are not a 

 few species which are resident in our region ; while the 

 summer or breeding habitat of several others is confined to 

 Eastern Asia, from which they migrate in their winter season 

 4o Australia and Polynesia. In reference to the terms 

 " summer " and " winter " as applied to Austrahan shore- 

 migrants, it may be well here to remark that as they breed 

 in the other hemisphere during the northern summer, they 

 come to us for the purpose of " wintering " during our 

 southern summer. 



A glance at the map of the globe will serve to exemplify 

 the migratory movements of the Limicolce. Observation 

 proves that, like other birds which prior to the Glacial epoch 

 were resident in the Arctic regions, and now only resort 



