344 BULLETIN 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



most conspicuous and noisy of the August arrivals. It has been 

 seen as early as July 13, but usually disappears toward the end of 

 September. Considerable numbers fall victims to the gun, as they 

 are not bad eating." 



C. J. Pennock has noted it in Delaware as late as October 12, and 

 has seen it in Florida as early as September 16. It is an abundant 

 migrant in the interior. Edward S. Thomas tells me that in Ohio 

 the average fall migration dates are between August 3 and October 

 16; he has a very late record of a specimen collected on November 

 29, 1923. From the prairie Provinces of Canada the main flight de- 

 parts in August, but A. G. Lawrence gives me September 29, 1923, 

 as his latest date. 



J. A. Munro tells me that it is " an abundant autumn migrant " at 

 Okanagan Landing, British Columbia ; his dates run from July 9 to 

 September 1. This species seems to be a rare migrant on the coasts 

 of Washington and California. 



Game. — The summer yellow-legs has always been a popular game 

 bird and has always been counted in the class of " big birds." It is 

 still fairly abundant, but occurs in nothing like its former numbers. 

 Giraud (1844) was informed by a noted gunner "that he killed 106 

 yellow-shanks by discharging both barrels of his gun into a flock 

 while they were sitting along the beach." No such flocks occur 

 to-day. However, they are not all gone, for Stuart T. Danforth 

 (1925) says that at Cartagena Lagoon, Porto Rico, 



they occur in flocks of from 2 to 100. They reach their greatest abundance 

 early in October. On October 7 and 11, 1924, I observed over 1,000, and on 

 other days shortly before and after these dates from 500 to 800. Usually 

 there are not over 100 present at once. They feed in the shallow open water, 

 on the mud flats, and among the flooded grasses and sedges. They often asso- 

 ciate with other sandpipers, especially the greater yellowlegs, stilt, and semi- 

 palmated sandpipers They are surprisingly tame while in Porto Rico, and 

 it is slaughter, not sport, to shoot them. Sometimes the flocks are so densely 

 packed that hunters kill as many as 20 at a single shot. 



I have never felt that the summer yellow-legs should be in the 

 game-bird class, though I must confess that it has some gamey quali- 

 ties. It is, at times, absurdly tame; it decoys very easily, returns 

 again and again to the slaughter, and its little body is so small that 

 many lives must be sacrificed to make a decent bag. Hjowever, it is 

 interesting sport to sit in a well-made blind on a marsh, with decoys 

 skillfully arranged, and show one's skill in whistling up these lively 

 and responsive little birds. After all, gunning is not so much a 

 means of filling up the larder as an excuse for getting out to enjoy 

 the beauties of nature and the ways of its wild creatures. 



Mr. Nichols explains how it is done on Long Island, where this 

 species has for many years furnished most of the shooting ; he writes : 



