316 GAME BIRDS. WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



History. 



Among all the impressions of my boyhood, which will re- 

 main with me while life shall last and reason maintain her sway, 

 none is more vivid, none brings back a greater flood of recollec- 

 tions, than the memory of the hours of darkness spent in listen- 

 ing to the notes of the birds passing overhead when the warm 

 south winds of May brought the great tide of bird migration 

 which flooded the fields and woods of New England and 

 passed on toward the north. Chief among the notes heard on 

 such occasions, falling from the far spaces of the darkened 

 night, came the soft but penetrating flight call of the 

 Upland Plover. Mingling with the faint notes of Warblers, 

 Thrushes, Cuckoos, and Yellow-legs, it always fell clear and 

 distinct to the ear. There is no richer music among all the 

 songsters of the grove than the long, mellow, rippling whistle 

 of this lovely bird. In those days it nested in the fields back 

 of our house, within the limits of the city of Worcester, and 

 was well known to the farmers of Worcester and the western 

 counties. It was plentiful, particularly in the migrations 

 along our coast and in the Connecticut valley. 



What a change has occurred in forty years ! The fields and 

 hills that once knew this dove-like bird know it no more, and 

 its note, then commonly heard in most parts of the State, is 

 now rare. We listen for it in vain. The Grass-plover once 

 came in multitudes to the prairies of the west in spring, but 

 is growing rare as far west as Minnesota, South Dakota and 

 Texas, and is really common now only in some of the States 

 west of the Mississippi valley. It never was as plentiful here 

 as in the prairie States, for New England was originally a 

 wooded country. No doubt this bird increased in numbers at 

 first when the woods were cut off and many of our uplands 

 were made over into fields, pastures and gardens, but its 

 decrease began when the larger game had been killed off and 

 the shotgun took the place of the rifle. The following notes 

 from authors indicate its decrease: One of the most common 

 birds along the sea-coast of Massachusetts; found throughout 

 the continent according to season; common in Worcester 



