Waders and shore birds which reach South Africa in autumn--the spring of the Cape--are moulting into winter dress; before they leave they have often assumed or partially assumed the breeding dress. When they arrive the native South African birds are breeding, but though Mr Sclater thinks that some nest a second time in the south, no satisfactory evidence has ever been brought forward to support the suggestion. These long-distance travellers not only move from a zone of moderate temperature to a warmer one, but many of them pass through the hotter zone to a country having a similar temperature to the one in which they bred, thus enjoying summer but not torrid heat all the year round. There are birds in which the northern and southern forms are distinct. The wheatear, _Saxicola oenanthe oenanthe_, reaches us early, sometimes during the second week in March, and speedily settles down to nest. Towards the middle or end of April a brighter larger bird appears, the Greenland wheatear, _Saxicola oenanthe leucorrhoa_, which was recognised in Greenland, Iceland and eastern North America before it was seen that both forms occurred in Britain. This larger bird loiters through Britain, for its northern home is not ready for it until the Arctic spring. We know it breeds farther north than our wheatear, but its winter range is not fully worked out. The smaller bird is found in north and north-western Africa, and the larger form farther east, even south of the equator on the eastern seaboard, and probably, when we know more about the range of the two we shall find that the form breeding farther north, winters farther south.