SHORE BIRDS OF NOVA SCOTIA — GILPIN. 300 
The next birds which may be said from their numbers to modify 
our landscape are the plover, the green or golden plover, and the 
larger beetle heads. They usually migrate together, and are 
seen with us from August and September, a few lingering till 
November. Heavy south-west gales confuse them, and mass 
them in numbers as they prepare to light, during the gale, in the 
fields and on the shores. The large kind rather affect the fields, 
the smaller kind the sheres. It is very seldom you meet a male 
in full plumage, or black breast and belly. Their usual colour is 
spotted greenish on the back, with black splotched beneath. 
Coues denies the greenish or yellow wash upon the larger spe- 
cies, but my note, Sept. 20th, 1881, gives this yellow wash upon 
their backs. I have also observed a black spot beneath the wing, 
near the shoulder, as typical of the larger species. |The fourth 
toe, or nail, in the larger, wanting in the smaller, is the best 
mark to determine the young from each other as they approach 
each in colour and size. A very handsome male in full nuptial 
plumage, with deep black breast and vent, may be seen in the 
Halifax Museum, of the larger species. Though in the thousands 
which annually pass us during the autumn, I never have 
found one. 
Of the various other birds of this family that pass us in num- 
bers, there are so few that the sportsman or naturalist only ob- 
serves them. We may notice the Sanderling whose appearance 
at Digby I note during September, in his usual grey dress. The 
Killdeer very rare, having a single notice of him during March, 
at Halifax. The Turnstone cosmopolites, appearing everywhere, 
are seen at Digby during September. The Avoset I saw at St. 
John, killed there, and in Mr. Carnal’s collection. The three dif- 
ferent kinds of Curlew 1 have determined. The larger great 
billed Curlew seen by myself Sept., 1870, at Windsor, N.S. ; the 
Esquimau Curlew, and the smaller Esquimau Curlew, distin- 
guished from the last by its size, and not having the wings be- 
neath barred as in the last. 
My notes give September for all these species. The cape 
Curlew I have noted Halifax, October. Tringa subarquata, 
Schinss sand piper, I note Halifax, Oct., 1864, but I am not cer- 
