AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 291 





By Leander S- Keyser. 



What kinds of birds dwell south of the equator, and how do they 

 behave themselves? These are questions that every lover of animal 

 life would like to have answered. In the southern hemisphere the 

 seasons are reversed, and many of the other conditions that prevail are 

 different from those known on the northern continent, and the inquisi- 

 tive mind cannot help wondering how these changed circumstances 

 affect the avifaunal life of those remote regions. 



That many people are interested in these questions is proved by the 

 fact that the fourth edition of Dr. W. H. Hudson's "The Natural in 

 La Plata" was lately issued in answer to the public demand. Yet, as 

 the book is published in England, and is somewhat expensive, it is not 

 to be supposed that many people will be able to procure it; and there- 

 fore a recital of some of the more striking ways of South American 

 birds may be of value and interest to many of the readers of this 

 journal. 



Dr. Hudson's observations were made, for the most part, on the 

 pampas of La Plata, with an occasional reference for comparison to 

 the animal life of Brazil, Chili and Patagonia. It strikes one who 

 lives on the northern half of the earth as odd to read of January as 

 midsummer, of August as midwinter, of March and April as autumn, 

 and of September and October as spring; but of course such is the 

 reversal of the seasons in the great Argentine Republic. The migra- 

 tory movements of the birds of that country correspond to these sea- 

 sonal differences. March, April and May see the migrants of the 

 southern hemisphere flying northward from the approach of the south- 

 ern winter, toward the sunny lands of the equatorial belt; while at the 

 same time our North American migrants are winging their way to their 

 summer homes and breeding grounds in the North Temperate and 

 Arctic regions. Then in September and October the northern birds 

 are traveling toward the equator to escape the northern winter, and the 

 southern birds are journeying away from the equator to find the south- 

 ern summer. Their pilgrimages are in the same direction both in 

 spring and autumn, but for precisely opposite reasons. While our 

 northern migrants are busy rearing their young, their relatives of the 

 far south are enjoying their vacation in the tropical and sub-tropical 

 climes, and vice versa. 



However, the lines of division between North and South American 

 birds are not so sharply drawn as one would be led to suppose from the 



