210 WILD WINGS 
me, and forth\vith I engaged board with a fisherman’s family 
who lived close by. 
All my favorable impressions were fully confirmed during 
the two weeks of my stay. The beaches and flats abounded in 
life. Sanderlings, Ring-necks, Least and Semipalmated Sand- 
])ipers — in large flocks or scattering — were everywhere, 
with numbers of Piping Plovers, and occasionally Gray- 
backs and Dowitchers feeding among them. On the stony 
beaches, especially where seaweed had accumulated, were 
good flocks of Turnstones and numbers of Spotted Sandpip¬ 
ers. Great flocks of hundreds of all these species intermingled 
fed along the outer beach. Out on the flats of the inlet were 
many adult Black-bellied Plovers, which gathered in an 
immense flock, at high tide, upon certain dry sand-bars 
and thwarted all attempts to approach them. On these 
flats and on the marshes both kinds of Yellow-legs were found, 
and their shrill, “tell-tale” whistle was always resounding. 
The marshes attracted quite a few Pectoral Sandpipers, and, 
in the early morning, bunches of Phalaropes which had come 
in from the open sea. There were, too, from time to time, 
a few Hudsonian Curlews upon the marshes and dunes and 
also back in the cranberry-bogs. 
There was no flight, as yet, of the Golden Plover or 
Eskimo Curlew. I had to leave on September first, and, 
rather curiously, returned there on that exact date the year 
following, as though to begin where I left off. Conditions 
were about as before, save that the weather had turned cool 
and many of the smaller waders had left, while the young 
birds were just beginning to arrive. About the twenty-fifth of 
August the fishermen had noticed a few flocks of Eskimo 
Curlew and Golden Plover, but there were none about now. 
On September tenth I saw a single Golden Plover, which a boy 
had shot as it fed with some “ Ox-eyes.” On the thirteenth 
