BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 341 



Season. — A rather rare or local fall migrant coastwise, formerly abundant; 

 August to mid October. 



Range. — North and South America. Breeds from Kotzebue Sound along 

 Arctic coast to mouth of the Mackenzie, and from Melville Island, 

 Wellington Channel and Melville Peninsula south to northwestern Hud- 

 son Bay; winters on pampas of Brazil and Argentina; migrates south 

 across Atlantic from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; a few pass south 

 through Mississippi valley, and all migrate north by this route; in mi- 

 gration to California, Greenland and Bermuda. 



History. 



Of all the species of wading birds which formerly, in migra- 

 tion, swept in flocks from the arctic seas down the two Ameri- 

 can continents, the Golden Plover seems to have been the 

 most numerous. The Eskimo Curlew made a great show in 

 Labrador, where a large part of its numbers concentrated 

 in August, but the fall flight of the Golden Plover swept 

 over a great part of the continent as well. From their breeding 

 grounds on the arctic coasts and islands, extending from 

 Bering Sea to Hudson Bay and far toward the pole, they 

 moved southeasterly, probably crossing the continent diag- 

 onally, and reached the Atlantic not only in Labrador but at 

 many points. Thence by sea or along shore they followed 

 down the coasts of North and South America to the plains of 

 Argentina. Some also went down the Mississippi valley to 

 the Gulf. 



Professor Cooke says that they are apparently unrecorded 

 at all seasons from Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua 

 and Honduras, although a few have been noted in Costa Rica, 

 Guatemala and eastern Mexico. He advances what is prob- 

 ably a true explanation of this line of flight. Birds follow the 

 shortest route that furnishes an abundant food supply. The 

 Plover, a bird of treeless regions, summers on the northern tun- 

 dras and winters on the pampas. It cannot return in spring 

 by the sea route as the food supply in Labrador is not ready; 

 therefore it goes north through the interior, migrating through 

 the treeless regions of the Mississippi valley and the Sas- 

 katchewan, where insects and seeds are plentiful. It might be 

 added that as the Atlantic seaboard was mainly forested 



