240 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



for it. During September they pass southwards. Some 

 travel by the western route, via Norway, England, France 

 and Spain ; others cross Europe by the lines of its great 

 rivers ; while a third contingent, undaunted even by such 

 barriers as the Central-Asian deserts and the twenty thousand 

 feet of the Himalayas, boldly traverse the whole extent of 

 the Asiatic continent at its widest points. Of the first two 

 sections, a few winter in the Mediterranean ; but the majority 

 push forward along both coasts of Africa, and, crossing the 

 tropics, winter in vast numbers on the shores of Cape Colony, 

 Natal, and Madagascar. Then the Trans-Asiatic section, 

 after reaching the coasts of India, Burmah, &c., continue 

 their southern career through the Malay Archipelago, and 

 eventually winter in Australia and New Zealand. To say 

 they winter there is, of course, a misnomer, for it is obvious 

 that birds which can thus transfer their home bi-annually 

 from one hemisphere to the other, practically exclude that 

 period from their chronology. The Curlew- Sandpiper enjoys 

 the advantage of perennial summer. They, or at least the 

 majority of them, pass what is our winter in the summer 

 of the southern hemisphere. In (our) spring they begin to 

 move north again. Even in Australia they are obtained in 

 April in full summer plumage. Early in May they reappear 

 on the Mediterranean. In mid-May I have shot them in 

 Andaluia, together with Grey Plovers, Knots and Whim- 

 brels, in perfect breeding plumage. During that month they 

 traverse Europe, and by June have again disappeared from 

 our view in the mists of the unknown north. 



One more example of the utterly inscrutable dispositions 

 of Nature with regard to the migrations of this bird-group 

 a volume might be filled on the subject ! The first arrivals 

 on our coasts in autumn are composed (in several species) 

 exclusively of young birds, then only a few weeks old. The 

 parents not having completed their moult, are not ready to 

 leave their northern home till a week or two later. Thus 

 these infantile creatures, still partially downy and hardly 

 complete in feather, are able, without knowledge, experience, 

 or guide, without pilot or compass, safely to traverse 

 thousands of miles of unknown space. Yet, generation 



