2 o 8 
WILD WINGS 
WHiat was that great cloud of lairds high in the air, appar¬ 
ently three or four hundred in number, driving in from the 
sea with the gale ? I realized I was witnessing what I had 
longed to see, a flight of the Golden Plover and Eskimo 
Curlew, birds which in a certain way are to be associated in 
a class by themselves. In a moment, as I stood there, I saw 
another flock, and others, some smaller, but all of good size. 
There was no esi:)ecial order in their ranks ; it was no time to 
think of such matters. The gale had reduced them to hud¬ 
dling, driven masses. 
I have not space to detail the events of the day. P^or hours, 
these and other shore-bird flocks ]:)assed in from the sea over 
the end of the Cape. Most of them were high in air, but some 
came in low over the outer beach, and were decimated by the 
gunners. All that morning noble flocks of Golden Plover and 
Eskimo Curlew were stringing over the pasture grounds and 
barren hill-tojos, where the gunners lay in wait for them 
and shot them down. By noon the storm began to abate 
slightly, and the flight slackened. Early the next morning, 
though the wind was still in the east, there was hardly a wader 
of anv kind to be found. Every year since then, these hne 
birds have become scarcer on New England shores, and such 
a flight may never be seen again. There is a peculiar roman¬ 
tic interest which attaches to these flights. After nesting in 
the arctic regions, these plover and curlew proceed in August 
to Labrador. Thence they pass to Nova Scotia, and then 
south over the ocean, resting occasionally on its surface, but 
avoiding the dangerous shores of the luiited States. Cross¬ 
ing the West Indies, they are said to land on the shores of 
Brazil, and thence pass down to Argentina, and even Pata¬ 
gonia. If a gale blows them oft this course, and compels 
them to touch on our much-hunted shores, they leave them 
at the earliest possible moment. In the spring they return to 
