DOUBLE-BANDED DOTTEREL 
rings, or otherwise, large numbers of birds at their 
breeding-stations, so as to make them identifiable 
at whatever place they may migrate to, we shall 
remain in ignorance of the full life-history of many 
of our birds. Of these, one of the most perplexing 
is the Double-banded Dotterel. The current state- 
ment is that it breeds in New Zealand and migrates 
to Australia for the winter. The facts certainly do, 
so far as they go, fit in with this theory, which, if 
proved, constitutes the unique instance of a wading 
bird travelling east and west on its seasonal migrations 
instead of north and south. There is a quite obvious 
reason for the Asiatic Waders coming here : they 
procure for themselves thereby a double, in fact a 
perpetual summer and continuous food-supply. But 
why should a small bird leave New Zealand and cross 
a thousand miles of ocean to spend six months in a 
climate which can exhibit very little difference from 
that which it would have experienced had it remained 
in New Zealand the winter through ? 
The full summer plumage of the Double-banded 
Dotterel is greyish-brown on the upper surface, 
white on the under ; the breast has a narrow zone 
of black, slightly beneath which is a second and 
much broader band of chestnut. In the winter the 
chestnut band becomes fainter. In young birds, 
while there is always more or less of a grey mottled 
band across the lower neck suggesting the ultimate 
upper band of black, the chestnut band is absent. 
Here in Geelong, which is probably the best place 
