Note 7 — Chapter VIII · THE CORDILLERA OF THE ANDES

“The plovers, sandpipers and kindred species,” writes Knowlton, “take migratory journeys often of extraordinary length. Thus the American golden plover, Charadrius dominicus, breeds in arctic America, some venturing a thousand miles north of the Arctic Circle, and migrates through the entire length of North and South America to its winter home in Patagonia, and, curiously, its spring and fall routes are different. After feasting on the crowberry in Labrador, they seek the coast of Nova Scotia, where they strike out to sea, taking a direct course for the easternmost islands of the West Indies, and thence to the northeastern coast of South America. In spring not one returns by this route, but in March they appear in Guatemala and Texas. April finds their long lines trailing the prairies of the Mississippi Valley; the first of May sees them crossing our northern boundary, and by the first week in June they appear in their breeding grounds in the frozen north. The little sanderling, just mentioned, is almost cosmopolitan in distribution, breeding in the arctic and sub-arctic regions and migrating in the New World to Chile and Patagonia, a distance of eight thousand miles, and in the Old World along the shore of Europe, Asia and Africa. The Bartramian sandpiper, Bartramia longicauda, nests from eastern North America to Nova Scotia and Alaska, and goes south in winter to southern South America. The solitary sandpiper, Totanus solitarius, breeds mainly to the north of the United States, and winters as far south as Brazil and Peru. The buff-breasted sandpiper, Tryngites subruficollis, rears its young in the Yukon district of Alaska and from the interior of British Colombia to the Arctic coast, and journeys in winter well into South America. The turnstone, Arenaria interpres, a little shore bird, about the size of the song thrush of Europe, is also cosmopolitan, breeding in high northern latitudes and at other times of the year found along the coasts of Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America to the Straits of Magellan, Australia and the Atlantic and Pacific islands. It is one of the species mentioned as making the wonderful flight from the islands in Bering Sea to the Hawaiian Islands.”7