THE GOLDEN PLOVER. 
771 
The Golden Plover inhabits the whole of the northern 
parts of Europe, Asia, and America. In the winter it 
migrates southwards, to Tartary, Persia, India, Africa, 
Central America, &c.; some few remain in Southern 
Europe, chiefly in Spain and Sicily. This bird visits 
Central Germany only during its passage southwards. 
In the summer it is common to all northern countries. 
Those immense morasses called the Tundra shelter 
thousands upon thousands of pairs, furnishing them 
food in abundance during the summer months. These 
districts may be compared to the sandy plains of the 
south in their poverty and desert character, though 
at the same time they teem with animal life in the 
summer season. During the winter the lower orders of 
living creatures are buried deep beneath the snow, while 
the Willow and Common Ptarmigan migrate with the 
lemming or the reindeer towards the coast, as it would then 
be impossible for them to find sufficient sustenance. After 
this comes spring and the short northern summer, when 
the sun spreads its rays far away over the North Pole, 
bathing those plains in its radiance both day and night. 
Ice and snow vanish with a rapidity which can be scarcely 
credited, though the heat is not strong enough to evapo¬ 
rate the vast quantity of water thus produced, so that 
these regions become converted into one vast morass, 
with only here and there a dry spot on the few prominent 
portions of rising ground. At this season insect-life 
awakens from its long, death-like slumber, and myriads 
of gnats and mosquitoes abandon their larva-cases, which 
afforded them shelter during the winter. Thick swarms 
of these creatures float over the swamp, so dense, indeed, 
as literally to fill the air with living clouds. They 
cover every leaf, plant, stalk, and blade of grass, in 
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