176 Clark, Migrations of Shore Birds. Ta"^ 



opposite the place from which he started, as the current of the 

 stream will have gone on during the time he took in crossing. In 

 the case given, he would be two miles below the position opposite 

 the starting point, as the stream had a current of two miles per 

 hour, and he took an hour to get across. In the same way, 

 assuming the flight of Golden Plover to be one hundred miles an 

 hour, and the strength of the wind which it is crossing to be thirty 

 miles an hour, in one hour's flight, the plover would have reached 

 a point one hundred miles from where it started, but thirty miles 

 to the leeward of a line drawn from the starting place at right 

 angles to the wind. Thus in calculating the course which would 

 be taken by birds, provided they relied on the wind for a guide 

 and flew at right angles to it, we must remember that the direction 

 taken is in reality more or less diagonally across it (depending on 

 the strength of the wind) although the birds are all heading 

 directly across it. 



Starting from their breeding grounds in western Arctic America, 

 the course of the Golden Plover would be southeasterly across the 

 prevailingly southwest winds, which would bring the birds across 

 north central and northeastern Canada to Labrador, and the 

 eastern Canadian Provinces (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia). 

 This may be considered the first stage of their flight. It is inter- 

 esting to notice here that the Whimbrel {Numenius phceopus) and 

 the Ring Plover {Aigia/itis hiaticula) which breed in Greenland 

 and about Cumberland Gulf also in migrating fly across the pre- 

 vailing southwesterlies of the north Atlantic, which brings them 

 to the shores of Europe and Africa, instead of down the American 

 coast, as it might be supposed they would come. As a matter 

 of fact, the Whimbrel is unknown on the eastern sea-board of the 

 United States, while the only record for ALgia/itis hiaticula in 

 America (south of its breeding grounds) is Barbados (September 

 10, 1888), to which island a number of European birds (for 

 instance Pavoncella pug/iax, 1848 and 1878, Vanellus vane// us, 

 1886, Hydroche/idon leucoptera, 1888, and H. hybrida) have 

 strayed. 



Mr. William Brewster believes that the Whimbrel and s£gialitis 

 hiaticu/a in eastern Arctic America are merely colonies, the birds 

 from which would most naturally go south during the migrations 

 by the route taken by others in the European habitat of the spe- 



