64 



THE OOLOOI8T 



In the last proud father must do a 

 share, yet it is upon tlie solitious 

 mother that house-lteeping cares liang 

 heavy. We have view^ed all this, even 

 taken a clumsy hand at feeding per- 

 haps, being soundly lectured mean- 

 while by anxious parents, who rather 

 resented our interference with the 

 proper way to bring up a child. 



Much greater is the loss then, when 

 one of these bird friends go to return 

 no more. When as a boy on my 

 father's farm, each returning spring 

 there came (to spend the summer on 

 the farm) the Bartramian Sanupiper 

 or as we called it, the Plover. I well 

 remember that mellow whistle and up- 

 lifted wings of the alighting Plover, 

 the top rail of the pasture fence be- 

 ing the perch most favored. Bartra- 

 mian Sandpipers differ most complete- 

 ly from the generality of its relatives. 

 It is a Sandpiper which does not fre- 

 quent marshes, which breeds habitual- 

 ly on the dry uplands and often 

 perches among the branches of trees. 

 Coues describes the call as a "long- 

 drawn, soft, mellow whistle, of a 

 peculiarly clear, resonant quality." 

 This prolonged whistle of the alight- 

 ing bird together with its habit of 

 holding its wings for a moment per- 

 pendicularly, before adjusting them 

 over its back, makes it particularly 

 noticeable. While common they were 

 never plentiful, one or two pairs at 

 most being the number in our immedi- 

 ate neighborhood. To the south and 

 a mile away there being another pair ; 

 three miles to the east and near the 

 village of Pittsfield there were two 

 more pairs. While there may have 

 been others those were the only ones 

 I ever remember nesting in this sec- 

 tion. So you see "common" is really 

 an extreme way of expressing it and 

 were it not for their open field habits 

 (rare) would be the word. They 

 reared a brood each year and were 



never gunned on our farm. I had the 

 good fortune to find their nest thus 

 early in my youth. It was in a past- 

 ure then clear of all bushes. Some 

 years it was used as a field and the 

 hay was cut on it. The nest was situ- 

 ated at the side of and somewhat 

 covered by a bunch of grass or tus- 

 sock as it is called, and contained four 

 eggs. The bird was flushed from the 

 nest which was a slight hollow lined 

 with a few straws of grass. I did not 

 disturb them. A clerk in one of the 

 stores at the village heard of my find 

 and tried to buy them, but I would 

 not sell. This was the first week of 

 June. One year while following my 

 father about the field as he cut the 

 grass with a mowing machine, a flock 

 of Plover were run on to and before 

 the mower could be stopped, the head 

 of the mother was decapitated as she 

 sought to defend her young from the 

 wherring knives of the machine. A 

 number of years later, in 1894, a boy 

 friend brought me a set of four eggs 

 he had collected. This was May 19th. 

 He describes the nest as a slight hol- 

 low lined with a little grass, bird on 

 nest and the eggs were fresh. This 

 set was from one of the pairs which 

 nested near the village. These Plover 

 reared a brood each year up to 1898, 

 but being near to town were much 

 hunted each year in August, the law 

 being off then and the shooting of Up- 

 land Plover allowed. These, there- 

 fore were much wilder than those on 

 the home place, which were protected. 

 Now not only these have disappeared, 

 probably shot, but those on the home 

 farm as well, who were not persecuted 

 while there at least. I have not heard 

 or observed a Bartramian Sandpiper 

 in this section for years. As early as 

 1888 John C. Cahoon writing for the 

 Ornithologist and Oologist of the 

 "Shore Birds of Cape Cod" says of 

 Bartramian Sandpiper "it was in for- 



