STEAD.—Migratory Plovers of New Zealand. 491 
When, in 1902, I got the first specimen of the Hudsonian godwit here, 
the late Captain Hutton wrote in an interesting manner of the various 
routes the bird could have followed in coming. As he then said, the bird 
Australia, it was strange that it should have been got in New Zealand. 
He points out the disadvantage that the “San Francisco route " has 
of one stretch of sea of over two thousand miles. Since then three 
r ca 
bird, the pectoral sandpiper, which has normally the same range as 
the Hudsonian godwit—n i i 
Australia. Both of these species might, of course, have come to us 
from Patagonia through the Antarctic, but this I regard as extremely 
improbable. I, personally, have little doubt that they came via Siberia 
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hand, the occurrence of the Hudsonian godwit, pectoral sandpiper, and 
little stint in New Zealand (see below), though they are not reported from 
Australia, suggests that perhaps these birds come via the Solomon Islands 
and New Caledonia. By whatever course they came, I think we may take 
it for granted that these stragglers were accompanying some of our regular 
migrants, following their regular route. 
Canutus canutus (Linnaeus) 1758. Knot. 
Tringa canutus Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, p. 150, 1758; Sharpe, 
Cat. Birds Brit, Mus., vol. 24, p. 593, 1896; Buller, Suppl. 
Birds N.Z., vol. 1, p. 187, 1905. Canutus canutus Mathews and 
Iredale, Ibis for April, 1913, p. 261; Ridgway, Bull. U.S. Nat. 
Mus. No. 50, pt. 8, p. 231, 1919. 
January of this year I stayed two days at the lighthouse on 
Farewell Spit. The bay inside the spit, where the tide recedes for a 
distance of nearly nine miles, is one of the great feeding-grounds for the 
migratory plover in New Zealand, and thousands of these birds were there 
at the time of my visit. The great majority were bar-tailed godwits and 
knots, but there was also quite a number of Eastern golden plover and 
turnstones. Even at that early date a few knot were beginning to moult 
i e, but I saw no instance of this among the 
having done so; also, I have never seen a godwit here in the winter in 
its summer , so presumably only those birds stay which have 
no inclination to nest that year. 
