SHORE BIRDS. 



THIS is a term popularly employed to 

 include many of those birds which 

 frequent the sea coast at certain seasons of 

 the year. They are for the most part mem- 

 bers of the family Limicolae, of which plo- 

 vers and sandpipers may be accepted as 

 general types. 



Familiar as they are to residents along 

 the Atlantic seaboard, they are in no sense 

 of the word exclusively marine. They are 

 simply migratory birds, which, following 

 the line of coast in their migrations, have 

 learned that a living is to be picked up upon 

 the sands and rocks that bound the ocean, 

 and that the salt marshes supply a rich and 

 varied bill of fare. A considerable pro- 

 portion, but by no means the whole, of the 

 birds of this order take the coast route in 

 their passage north and south, and con- 

 stitute a familiar feature of the landscape 

 at certain seasons; some of these build their 

 nests and rear their young along the Atlan- 

 tic seaboard, being either non-migratory or 

 confining their migrations within the limits 

 of the United States. 



But as regards those birds of the order 

 whose range of migration extends from the 

 tropics to the Arctic region, a great many 

 of them make the passage inland, the val- 

 ley of the Mississippi being a well defined 

 route, and perhaps the one inland route 

 capable of affording a continuous and 

 adequate supply of food for large numbers. 



The salt marshes and sands of the sea- 

 shore, moreover, not only furnish an abund- 

 ant food supply, but food of a class entire- 

 ly different from what the birds have been 

 living on either north or south, and there 

 is no room for reasonable doubt that these 

 birds look forward to spending a few 

 weeks or months at the seaside with pleas- 

 urable anticipations akin to our own, and 

 enjoy the change of diet with the same 

 keen zest. 



Birds are compelled to migrate both by 

 the influence of climate on their own con- 

 stitution and its effect upon their food sup- 

 ply, and while some of our familiar shore 

 birds winter far down in South America, 

 where it is then summer, and spend the sum- 

 mer well within the Arctic circle, there are 

 others, like the purple sandpiper, who win- 

 ter upon the bleak New England coast, and 

 start for the north as soon as the icy grip 

 of winter has been relaxed, but only to 

 make room for the visitors from the south, 

 among others the well-known piping plo- 

 ver and the ringneck, whose notes herald 

 the approach of spring. The piping plover 

 has come to stay, and soon makes himself 

 at home, but abundant as is his food sup- 

 ply it consists of sand fleas and other small 

 insects, and the energy with which he pur- 

 sues it shows that all his faculties are called 

 into continuous activity for the maintenance 

 of his existence. 



By the middle of April, or from that to 

 the close of the month, the winter yellow- 

 leg puts in his appearance on the New 

 England coasts, and does his best to main- 

 tain his established reputation as a vora- 

 cious feeder. Their usual feeding ground is 

 the low marshes, where they find innumer- 

 able small minnows and other forms of ma- 

 rine life left by the subsidence of the tide. 



These birds are stigmatized by gunners 

 as "tell-tales," for the " yellowshank " is 

 not only extremely vigilant, but on the 

 first approach of danger he gives vent to 

 a loud, shrill whistle, which serves as a 

 warning to all the birds in the neighbor- 

 hood. 



Another early visitant is the winter snipe 

 or red-backed sandpiper, who goes no fur- 

 ther south than Virginia, where he puts off 

 his black summer waistcoat, and is hardly 

 recognizable as the same bird. These 

 birds are not so numerous on our shores in 



