70 BULLETIN 146;, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



following the same line, as if a line invisible to all eyes except their own had 

 been traced across the green world for their guidance. It gave one the idea 

 that all the birds of this species, thinly distributed over tens of thousands 

 of square miles of country, had formed the habit of assembling previous to 

 migration at one starting point, from which they set out in successive flocks 

 of a medium size in a disciplined order on that marvelous journey to their 

 Arctic breeding grounds. 



Dr. Alexander Wetmore (1926) noted migrating birds at Giia- 

 mini on March 3 to 8. Prof. W. W. Cooke (1912) says that ^'mi- 

 grants appear in the interior of Brazil and in Peru during March, 

 but there are no spring migration data for the whole distance 

 between Peru and Texas." There is a heavy migration through 

 Texas during April and then directly northward through the western 

 part of the Mississippi Valley and the prairie Provinces of Canada 

 to the Arctic tundra. The whole migration route in the spring seems 

 to be very narrow. Prof. William Rowan (1927) writes: 



This is a remarkable sandpiper from many viewpoints. Like the American 

 golden plover and the Eskimo curlew it used to exist in millions and was 

 slaughtered in uncountable numbers. To-day there are many widely traveled 

 collectors who have never in their lives met with it. After extensive inquiries 

 I can discover only one spot on the continent besides our point on which 

 migrating buff-breasted sandpipers may be relied upon to turn up in any 

 numbers. We get it in hundreds every spring, and, roughly speaking, it 

 frequents only one field. Odd birds or moving flocks may be noted elsewhere 

 from time to time, but on the rough pasture that forms the main body of the 

 point this species arrives with unfailing regularity within a day or two of 

 the 18th of May. Like the golden plover, it seems to migrate by night, for 

 at daybreak there may be hundreds in place of the few or none at all of the 

 previous evening. 



In his notes for 1924 he writes to me : 



Two birds were seen May 19 and subsequently collected. On the 21st, five 

 were seen shortly after sunrise with black-bellied plover, the first time that I 

 have seen this association, but a large arrival took place during the day 

 and there were scores in the evening. On the 24th they had reached numbers 

 such as I have never before seen and numerous photographs were taken. On 

 the 26th they must have been on the ground in many hundreds. The whole 

 of their area, over a mile long, was crawling with them. There is no doubt 

 that tills year they outnumbered every other wader we had on the place. 

 Even so, they never formed large flocks, and I think we never saw more than 

 60 get up and fly together. They dropped very suddenly in numbers after this, 

 as though they had all cleared off together, but a few were seen each day till 

 the 30th, when a flock of 30 constituted our last record. 



Pierce Brodkorb and Frank Grasett have recorded it in north- 

 eastern Illinois as early as April 27. A. G. Lawrence's dates for 

 Whitewater Lake, Manitoba, are from May 13 to 19. Dr. E. W. 

 Nelson (1887) noted the first arrivals at St. Michael, Alaska, on 

 May 31; and John Murdoch (1885) says that it arrived at Point 

 Barrow June 6 to 8. 



