The Desert Pampas. 21 



birds, and in their great biannual journey they pass 

 through a variety of climates, visiting many countries 

 where the conditions seem suited to their require- 

 ments. Nevertheless, in September, and even as 

 early as August, they begin to arrive on the pampas, 

 the golden plover often still wearing his black 

 nuptial dress ; singly and in pairs, in small flocks, 

 and in clouds they come — curlew, godwit, plover, 

 tatler, tringa — piping the wild notes to which the 

 Greenlander listened in June, now to the gaucho 

 herdsman on the green plains of La Plata, then to 

 the wild Indian in his remote village; and soon, 

 further south, to the houseless huanaco-hunter in 

 the grey wilderness of Patagonia. 



Here is a puzzle for ornithologists. In summer 

 on the pampas we have a godwit — Limosa hudsonica ; 

 in March it goes north to breed ; later in the 

 season flocks of the same species arrive from the 

 south to winter on the pampas. And besides this 

 godwit, there are several other North American 

 species, which have colonies in the southern hemi- 

 spere, with a reversed migration and breeding 

 season. Why do these southern birds winter so far 

 south ? Do they really breed in Patagonia ? If so, 

 their migration is an extremely limited one com- 

 pared with that of the northern birds — seven or 

 eight hundred miles, on the outside, in one case, 

 against almost as many thousands of miles in the 

 other. Considering that some species which mi- 

 grate as far south as Patagonia breed in the Arctic 

 regions as far north as latitude 82°, and probably 

 higher still, it would be strange indeed if none of 

 the birds which winter in Patagonia and on the 



