206 
WILD WINGS 
The Solitary Sandpiper is seen on the margins mostly of 
woodland jDonds and bogs. 
I may be mistaken, but it has usually seemed to me that 
from about the twentieth of August to the first part of Sep¬ 
tember there is a decided diminution in the numbers of many 
of the shore-lfirds. It is largely the adults that have been 
jiresent hitherto. These pass on, and there is a gap between 
this and the arrival of the young, which in a numl^er of 
s]:)ecies can be distinguished by a paler cast of j^lumage. 
The young Ring-necks and Knots begin to appear by the 
last of August; young Black-bellied Plovers are not much in 
evidence before the tenth of September, and the young of 
the Golden Plovers, if they come at all, are often even later. 
During the latter half of Septeml)er and well into October 
there are considerable flights of Winter Yellow-legs. At 
this time, too, the Red-backed Sandpipers flock along the 
beaches, a tardy tribe that the summer boarder knows 
nothing of. Wilson’s Snipe abounds on the meadows and 
{provides sport for the hunters. The hardiest of all the host 
are the Purple Sand]:)i]Ders, the only waders that habitually 
spend their winters in the North. Thev can rarely bear the 
tropical heat of a Boston winter, and Cape Ann is about as 
far south as they commonly venture. They are abundant, 
for instance, on Matinicus Island, Maine, all winter, feeding 
among the rocks, and are called “ Rock Snipe.” 
There can be little doubt that, owing to the tremendous 
])ersecution of the shore-birds in their southward flight along 
the coast-line of New England and the Middle States, increas¬ 
ing numbers of various species are learning to avoid this 
dangerous zone and to pass us far out to sea, living in the 
spring from the capes of North Carolina or \^irginia direct 
to the Maritime Provinces, and in the autumn flight straight 
back from Nova Scotia. Indeed, this has always been the 
