2IO WILD WINGS 



me, and forthwith I engaged board with a fisherman's family 

 who Hved close by. 



All my favorable impressions were fully confirmed during 

 the two weeks of my stay. The beaches and fiats abounded in 

 life. Sanderlings, Ring-necks, Least and Semipalmated Sand- 

 pipers — in large flocks or scattering — were everywhere, 

 with numbers of Piping Plovers, and occasionally Gray- 

 backs and Dowitchers feeding among them. On the stony 

 beaches, especially where seaweed had accumulated, were 

 good flocks of Turnstones and numbers of Spotted Sandpip- 

 ers. Great flocks of hundreds of all these species intermingled 

 fed along the outer beach. Out on the fiats of the inlet were 

 many adult Black-bellied Plovers, which gathered in an 

 immense flock, at high tide, upon certain dry sand-bars 

 and thwarted all attempts to aj^proach them. On these 

 flats and on the marshes both kinds of Velio w-legs were found, 

 and their shrill, " tell-tale " whistle was always resounding. 

 The marshes attracted cjuite a few Pectoral Sandjiipers, and, 

 in the early morning, bunches of Phalaropes which had come 

 in from the open sea. There were, too, from time to time, 

 a few Hudsonian Curlews upon the marshes and dunes and 

 also back in the cranberry-bogs. 



There was no flight, as yet, of the Golden Plover or 

 Eskimo Curlew. I had to leave on September first, and, 

 rather curiouslv, returned there on that exact date the year 

 following, as though to begin where I left off. Conditions 

 were about as before, save that the weather had turned cool 

 and many of the smaller waders had left, while the young 

 birds were just beginning to arrive. About the twenty-fifth of 

 August the fishermen had noticed a few flocks of Eskimo 

 Curlew and Golden Plover, but there were none about now. 

 On September tenth I saw a single Golden Plover, which a boy 

 had shot as it fed with some " Ox-eyes." On the thirteenth 



