308 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS: ZOOLOGY 



Museum. In the combined series are birds from various parts of Argen- 

 tina, from Patagonia and the Falkland Islands, as well as breeding birds 

 from Hudson Bay and Alaska. 



The following biographical notes are from the several sources indicated : 

 " Here is a puzzle for ornithologists. In summer on the pampas we 

 have a godwit — Limosa hiidsotiica ; in March it goes north to breed; 

 later in the season flocks of the same species arrive from the south to 

 winter on the pampas. And besides this godwit, there are several other 

 North American species, which have colonies in the southern hemisphere, 

 with a reversed migration and breeding season. Why do these southern 

 birds winter so far south? Do they really breed in Patagonia? If so, 

 their migration is an extremely limited one compared with that of the 

 northern birds — seven or eight hundred miles, on the outside, in one 

 case, against almost as many thousands of miles in the other. Consid- 

 ering that some species which migrate as far south as Patagonia breed in 

 the Arctic regions as far north as latitude 82°, and probably higher still, 

 it would be strange indeed if none of the birds which winter in Patagonia 

 and on the pampas were summer visitors to that great austral continent, 

 which has an estimated area, twice as large as that of Europe, and a cli- 

 mate milder than the arctic one. The migrants would have about six 

 hundred miles of sea to cross from Tierra del Fuego ; but we know that 

 the golden plover and other species, which sometimes touch at the Ber- 

 mudas when travelling, fly much further than that without resting. The 

 fact that a common Argentine titlark, a non-migrant and a weak flyer, has 

 been met with at the South Shetland Islands, close to the antarctic con- 

 tinent, shows that the journey may be easily accomplished by birds with 

 strong flight ; and that even the winter climate of that unknown land is 

 not too severe to allow an accidental colonist, like this small delicate bird, 

 to survive." (Huds. Natur. La Plata, 1892, pp. 21-22.) 



"The godwit, already mentioned, has been observed in flocks at the 

 Falkland Islands in May, that is, three months after the same species had 

 taken its autumnal departure from the neighbouring mainland. Can it be 

 believed that these late visitors to the Falklands were breeders in Pata- 

 gonia, and had migrated east to winter in so bleak a region ? It is far 

 more probable that they came from the south. Officers of sailing ships 

 beating round Cape Horn might be able to settle this question definitely 

 by looking out, and listening at night, for flights of birds, travelling north 



