Notes from Field and Study 



227 



covered with dead and dying herring. 

 Outgoing tides and hot suns soon did their 

 work. The stench was intolerable. City 

 carts and laborers were pressed into ser- 

 vice, to carry away the foul carcasses. 

 Property owners abutting the coasts set 

 their servants to clearing the beaches. 



In vain; no sooner was the coast fairly 

 well cleared of the deposit than the ne.xt 

 tide would roll in masses of the little 

 creatures, till their gleaming forms lay 

 again as in "windrows" along the hot 

 sands. People along the waterways fell 

 ill, and even the inhabitants of the hills 

 to the northward dared not open their 

 windows. 



Suddenly, out of the north (did they 

 smell our flats in Labrador?), and from 

 the islands along shore, came back our 

 Gulls, with many of our Common Terns. 

 These seized upon and devoured the her- 

 ring by hundreds. The carts had still 

 to be kept going, but the decrease caused 

 by the birds was so apparent that thought- 

 ful people everywhere in town exclaimed: 

 "Oh that we had more Gulls!" 



The next year, when Massachusetts 

 legislators were being tormented with 

 appeals for the privilege of shooting Gulls, 

 we had only to remind the careless ones 

 of the herring incident, and the good work 

 of our Gulls and Terns in that and similar 

 instances, to call forth enthusiastic and 

 hearty support of the birds' protection. 

 Beverly stood firmly in their favor. 



The Gulls and Terns are the natural 

 scavengers of the coast, who while sail- 

 ing hither and thither on wings so swift, 

 graceful, and powerful, challenging our 

 almost breathless admiration, and en- 

 hancing to so surprising a degree the 

 charm of coast scenery, are bent on errands 

 of merc}^ for all mankind. 



Yet we see even now, at intervals, a 

 pair of Gull's or Tern's wings with a breast 

 of the same in ghastly array on some 

 lady's (?) hat. 



Were the victims killed on our shores 

 because of the limited number of our 

 deputies and the lack of watchful care of 

 private individuals? Were they worn 

 because of the lack of moral courage of 



some of us to "speak up" in behalf of 

 creatures so beautiful? They have no 

 language with which to ai)peal to crude 

 and coarse cumberers of the earth. — 

 Annie Chask, Beverly, Mass. 



The Semipalmated Sandpiper as a 

 Marsh Bird 



The two smallest of our shore-birds. 

 The Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers, 

 although really not closely related, so 

 resemble one another in color, appearance 

 and habits, that they are not easily dis- 

 tinguished in life. 



During the spring and fall just passed, 

 the writer lias seen many of both species 



V9 r^y^- m-'i^S".. 



on salt and fresh meadows, in the vicinity 

 of New York, and has been surprised to 

 iind the Semipalmated Sandpiper as 

 abundant as the Least on the meadows, 

 having previously had the impression 

 that it was more a beach than a meadow 

 bird. In the late summer of igii, both 

 species were seen on the meadows and 

 mud-flats along the south shore of Long 

 Island. Great difficulty was experienced 

 in telling them apart. The more slender 

 bill and paler legs of the Least Sandpiper 

 were difiicult to make out in the living 

 bird, and there was great variation in the 

 color of the Semipalmated Sandpiper, 

 some of the specimens, perhaps the young, 

 being as dark as the other species. In 



