THE NORTHWARD FLIGHT 67 



five species of shore birds plover, snipe, and so on which 

 frequent Australia, quite half the number belong to the old 

 world. 



Anyone who has walked round the shores of Botany Bay 

 at low tide must have seen a large grey bird with a long 

 curved bill stalking about in search of crabs and marine insects. 

 It is the curlew proper not to be confused with the stone 

 plover, popularly so miscalled. This bird arrives in New 

 South Wales about August and September, and for five or six 

 months lives peacefully and unobtrusively at our doors ; but 

 with the flight of summer it also departs, and travels north by 

 the East Indies and Japan, till it reaches Siberia, where it stays 

 throughout the northern summer. 



People living in the western suburbs of Sydney may often 

 hear during the summer nights little faint bird cries, sounding 

 weirdly through the dark. They are the voices of the godwits, 

 flying over from their feeding grounds at Botany to the mud 

 flats on the Parramatta River. This is another native of 

 Siberia, and with its friends the greenshanks, curlews, sand- 

 pipers, stints, and whimbrels, joins the northern flight for the 

 Arctic circle. 



Among these long-distance travellers are several birds 

 known as game to all sportsmen. The spur-winged and black- 

 breasted plover we have with us always, but the grey and the 

 golden plover breed among the tundras of Siberia. Our 

 friend, Jack Snipe, the well-beloved, which, as all men know, 



