SHORE BIRDS OF NOVA SCOTIA — GILPIN. 377 
shores. They are generally in imperfect moult, having lost their 
nuptial plumage, which is not yet replaced by their winter one. 
Few full plumaged males appear, but females, imperfect males 
and young. Hence the difficulty of classing them. The pursuit 
of food alone urges them on their migration southward, whilst 
that of reproduction swept them onward in the spring to the 
fierce North. The spring route is more direct, more inland, and 
more quick. We see nothing of them during spring. The most 
obvious, and those which from numbers and from sight most 
modify our landscape, are the sand peeps (sand pipers, tringa), 
and next them the ring necks (the plover). These two speck 
the feathery margins of our salt-estuaries, whitening our flats 
and flashing like silver clouds in the air. Next in number come 
the larger plover, golden plover and beetle heads, which migrate 
in sufficient numbers to modify our landscape. The other species 
must be looked for by the naturalist, and from their numbers 
are scarcely noticed, save by the sportsman, or naturalist, and 
yet in their aggregate great numbers pass us. I have thought 
the members of the Institute would be interested in a description 
and classification of all these birds, the numerous as well as the 
more rare, and therefore in this paper shall give only what I 
have seen personally myself, of all the various shore birds that 
pass our shores during the autumn. Ido not doubt that some 
have evaded my notice, or that I have found a difficulty in classi- 
fication in others, yet the work of an eye-witness is always valu- 
able. I shall use the Smithsonian nomenclature (Dr. Coues), 
thinking it the best, but finding some difficulty even in it, to say 
nothing of Nuttal, Wilson, and the older naturalists, in properly 
arranging all my species. Of the vast flocks which, as I said be- 
fore, modify our landscape, I have found from a study of years, 
from minute measurements and accurate coloured drawings, 
that they are composed of two species of ring neck plover, and 
three distinct of sand peeps, or sand pipers, all in common in 
huge flocks. 
The ring necks are the American ringed plover, Ai semipal- 
matus, and Ai melodus, piping plover. Of the sand peeps, with 
the utmost study, I have only found three species, the less sand 
