22 The Naturalist in La Plata. 



pampas were summer visitors to that great austral 

 continent, which has an estimated area twice as 

 large as that of Europe, and a climate 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 continent, 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 acci- 

 dental colonist, like this small delicate bird, to 

 survive. 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 autumal departure from the neighbouring 

 mainland. Can it be believed that these late 

 visitors to the Falklands were breeders in Patagonia, 

 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 ques- 

 tion definitely by looking out, and listening at 

 night, for flights of birds, travelling north from 

 about the first week in January to the end of 

 February ; and in September and October travel- 

 ling south. Probably not fewer than a dozen species 

 of the plover order are breeders on the great austral 

 continent; also other aquatic birds ducks and 



