SUPPLEMENT TO BIRDS OF ESSEX COUNTY 



91 



"A letter to Mr. Ives from J. E. Short (not dated) says, ' I should say there 

 were fifty of them — they stayed around two days. Charles Bartlett saw them 

 (also) and he said he hadn't seen any for 15 years.' 



" Both Short and Bartlett are ' clammers ' and have been experienced shore- 

 bird gunners in the past. Mr. Ives has talked with both these men and others at 

 Rowley and feels certain that there was no mistake in identification. — John C. 

 Phillips,^ Wenham, Mass." 



Of historical interest is the following quotation from Audubon overlooked in 

 the original Memoir: "Previous to my voyage to Labrador I had seen only a 

 single bird of this species, which was kindly given me by my learned friend, Wil- 

 liam Oakes, Esq., of Ipswich, Massachusetts, who had procured it in his imme- 

 diate neighborhood, where, as I have since ascertained, the Esquimaux Curlew 

 spends a few days in early autumn while on its way southward. "- 



The only other definite record for Essex County in the last fifteen years I am 

 able to give is the following: "I purchased of Mr. John Hardy of the Boston 

 Market, a male Eskimo Curlew {Nmncnius horealis) taken at Newburyport, 

 Mass., by A. B. Thomas, August 2"^, 1908. He shot two, but the other bird had 

 its head so badly shot that it could not be made into a skin. — John E. Thayer,^ 

 Lancaster, Mass." 



130 [270] Squatarola squatarola (Linn.). 



Black-bellted Plover; "Beetle-head''; "Black-heart"; 

 " Bull-head " ; " Chuckle-head." 



Common transient visitor. May 8 to June 10 (June 25, 27) ; July 5 to No- 

 vember 20. 



On June 10, 1906, there were five on Ipswich Beach, two in full black -bellied 

 plumage, three with pale bellies. On June 2j, 1909, I found three on the beach, 

 one in full plumage, two mottled. 



Besides the counts of the various stages of plumage seen in the spring, given 

 in the original Memoir, the following of a flock of sixty-six that passed by me 

 within a hundred yards as I lay concealed on the beach at Ipswich, may be added. 

 This was on May 21, 1905. Nineteen were in full nuptial plumage, twenty-seven 

 in various stages of molt from the pale-belly winter plumage to the summer 

 plumage, and twenty were apparently still in winter plumage, but nearly all 

 showed on close scrutiny with a telescope a few black feathers coming in on the 



1 Phillips, J. C. Auk, vol. 33, p. 434, 1916. 



2 Audubon, J. J. The Birds of America, vol. 6, p. 45, 1843. 



3 Thayer, J. E. Auk, vol. 26, p. 77, 1909. 



