By the kind permission of Mr Cooke I am able to reproduce three of his maps, illustrating the longest known distance travelled by any bird in a single flight, and the probable evolution of this extraordinary oversea voyage (21). This long journey, roughly 2500 miles at a flight, is used in autumn by several species of American shore birds, and the particular species most easily recognised, is the American golden plover, _Charadrius dominicus_, which differs but little from our _C. pluvialis_. An important point to notice is that the route followed in the fall is not the one used by the bird in spring, an undoubted proof that all routes are not identical with the original line of dispersal of the species. Nor is the route directly from the north to the south, though there is plenty of evidence to show the fallacy of the notion that all birds move in this one direction. The golden plover nests along the Arctic coasts of North America from Alaska to Hudson Bay. So soon as the young are able to take care of themselves the birds migrate south-east to Labrador, where for some weeks they fatten on the autumn harvest of fruits. A short journey across the Gulf of St Lawrence brings them to Nova Scotia, where they gather before starting on their oversea flight. The eastward trip to the food-supplying districts is support of the idea that a route is originated by passage from food-base to food-base, rather than by any hasty rush from the dangers of approaching winter. The birds start south from Nova Scotia for South America! During this long oversea journey, which Mr G. H. Mackay thinks, with reason, may be undertaken under favourable conditions at a speed of from 150 to 200 miles an hour by birds with such magnificent power of flight, the plovers may meet with many different winds. The Cape Cod sportsmen look for them if the wind is strong from the north-east; the Barbados gunners expect them when there is squally weather from the south-east, but when westerly breezes are blowing they will pass so far as 400 miles east of the Bermudas. Only when the wind is adverse and strong do the plovers visit the Bermudas or even stop at any of the northern Lesser Antilles, 600 miles from the coast of South America. In favourable weather they neglect any of these "emergency stop-overs" and hasten on. In the Guianas the birds rest and feed, but they soon move on. Across the Brazils their actual route is uncertain, but they have been met with in Amazonia, and are known to winter in Argentina, and, it is suspected, in eastern Patagonia. [Illustration: Map showing the evolution of the migration route of the American Golden Plover. (From _The National Geographic Magazine._)]