MIGRATION AMONG SHORE-BIRDS 169 



vember. By the middle of November, arrivals from 

 the north ceased and birds of this group were settled 

 on their winter resting grounds. 



Changing conditions in this far distant region 

 have affected many of our North American mi- 

 grants, which go there to winter, as seriously as the 

 persecution of guns to which they have been sub- 

 jected in the North. Broad areas of dry or marshy 

 pampa, under primitive conditions the winter homes 

 of myriads of golden plover, upland plover, and 

 Eskimo curlew, are now devoted to raising wheat or 

 to the pasturage of great herds of cattle and sheep. 

 Added to this change in ecological conditions, there 

 has been persecution by man because certain of 

 these birds became famed for the delicate flavor 

 of their flesh. The Eskimo curlew, unable to adapt 

 itself to changing conditions, is practically, if not 

 actually, extinct; while the upland plover, greatly 

 reduced in abundance, at present aided by protec- 

 tion from gunners in the United States and Canada, 

 is holding its own though its fate is doubtful, since 

 in South America it has inherited the name and 

 epicurean fame that proved the downfall of the 

 Eskimo curlew. The golden plover is in better 

 state, since it lives on the broad coastal mudflats 

 as well as on the open prairies, and in the former 

 locality is less accessible. It was strange to find the 

 white-rumped sandpiper, a species known well to 



