Nest-building^ Incubation, and Migration. 257 



as Cape Colony. The nestlings of the knot have been 

 found in Grinnell Land in latitude 82 33' N., and the 

 bird is known to winter as far south as Australia and New 

 Zealand. The turnstone is a great traveller, nesting in 

 Greenland or on the coasts of Scandinavia, and wintering 

 in Australia, New Zealand, South America, or Africa. The 

 distances travelled amount sometimes to over 7000 miles. 

 . . . The American golden plovers breed in Arctic regions, 

 from Alaska to Greenland, above the limits of forest growth, 

 and when autumn comes they pass through Nova Scotia, 

 strike boldly out to sea, and, generally leaving the Ber- 

 mudas well to the west, sail on over the ocean till they 

 reach the West Indies. Even then, it is said, they will 

 sometimes pass the first islands they reach, and pass on to 

 more distant ones. From Nova Scotia to Hayti, the 

 nearest West India Island available, is 1700 miles." * 

 So universal is the migration impulse, that Professor 

 Newton is of opinion that " every bird of the northern 

 hemisphere is to a greater or less degree migratory in some 

 part or other of its range." f The outward and the home- 

 ward routes are not in all cases, perhaps not generally, the 

 same ; and yet there would seem to be little doubt that the 

 birds return to the particular spot from which they started 

 some six months before. In some species the birds fly in 

 enormous flocks ; in others the flight is less gregarious and 

 more scattered. Much has been written on the subject of 

 " migration routes," and it may be taken as proved that in 

 some species these are determined by the direction of 

 valleys, the trend of coast-lines, and so forth. But any 

 discussion of such routes is quite beyond our present 

 purpose. Often the birds fly at great heights ; they have 



* ' The Structure and Life of Birds," by F. W. Headley, pp. 352 and 

 357, 358. 



t "Dictionary of Birds," p. 552. 



