22 
The Nahn^alist hi La Plata. 
pampas were summer visitors to that great austral 
continent, which has an estimated area twice as 
large as that of Europe, and a climate milder than 
the arctic one. The mioTants would have about 
six hundred miles of sea to cross from Tierra del 
> 
Fuego ; but we know that the golden plover and 
other species, which sometimes touch at the Ber- 
mudas when travelling, fly much further than that 
without resting. The fact that a common Argentine 
titlark, a non-migrant and a weak flyer, has been 
met with at the South Shetland Islands, close to 
the antarctic continent, shows that the journey 
may be easily accomplished by birds with strong 
flight ; and that even the winter climate of that 
unknown land is not too severe to allow an acci- 
dental colonist, like this small delicate bird, to 
survive. The godwit, already mentioned, has been 
observed in flocks at the Falkland Islands in May, 
that is, three months after the same species had 
taken its autumal departure from the neighbouring 
mainland. Can it be believed that these late 
visitors to the Falklands were breeders in Patagonia, 
and had migrated east to winter in so bleak a 
region ? It is far more probable that they came 
from the south. Ofiicers of sailing ships beating 
round Cape Horn might be able to settle this ques- 
tion definitely by looking out, and listening at 
night, for flights of birds, travelling north from 
about the first week in January to the end of 
February ; and in September and October travel- 
ling south. Probably not fewer than a dozen species 
of the plover order are breeders on the great austral 
continent; also other aquatic birds — ducks and 
