I20 Bird-Lore most plantations the Plover, as the two species are indiscriminately called, are wisely protected. I know of few facts pertaining to birds that are stranger than the yearly migrations of the Plover, the Turnstone and the Tattler to and from these islands. Leaving Hawaii in April by thousands and returning in August and September, in the interim they brave the passage each way of some three thousand miles of ocean, more or less, according to the point of the American continent they steer for. What a wearisome flight across the watery wastes these trips must be ! If a storm is encountered thousands must perish, and under any circumstances no doubt many find a watery grave. Wing power has its limits, and many a brave bird heart homeward bound is each year forever stilled in the remorseless waters as strength fails and the never ceasing wing-beats grow fewer and feebler till the end comes. Why do these birds insist upon such long and dangerous journeys? Their first discovery of Hawaii must have been accidental. A southward migration of Plover and Turnstones was, doubtless, interrupted by a storm. The birds were blown out to sea and, bravely striving against fate, the fortunate survivors discovered Hawaii many centuries before the English navigator was born. But when once the "Paradise of the Pacific" was discovered, why leave it ? Why brave the weary and dangerous journey back ? The temperature varies but little in Hawaii the year round. The uplands frequented by the birds are cool at all times of the year; appar- ently, too, they of^er as much food in summer as in winter. Perhaps in time the birds will come to realize the advantages of a permanent resi- dence in Hawaii. But first they must overcome that passion — the most powerful that stirs the avian brain — the homing instinct, which impels them to leave Hawaii's hospitable shores for the far away Alaska for no other reason than that they have always done so. In the far north they first saw the light, in the far north they reared last year's brood, and back to the far north they must hark at the cost of no matter what danger and fatigue. Like the Tattler, both the Plover and the Turnstone leave a contingent in Hawaii, which consists, as in the case of the former, of the young and the decrepit. But three other coast inhabitants remain to be mentioned, for the Bristle -thighed Curlew, or Kiowea, is so rare upon this island that I have never seen one. In some respects the Noddy Tern, or Noio, is the most notable and interesting of all Hawaii's coast birds, but its distribution is very local. Long sections, in fact, of Hawaii's coast line appear to be without these interesting birds, perhaps because of the absence of proper cliff shelters. Upon the ledges of cliffs and upon the shelves of rocky caves the Noddies doze away their idle hours by day and roost at night. Here upon the
