The migrants 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 Bermudas 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 accidental 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. Officers
of sailing ships beating round Cape Horn might be able to settle this
question 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 travelling 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 geese; and
many Passerine birds, chiefly of the Tyrant family.
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