BAY-BIRDS. 153 
notice of the stools, is comparatively a solitary bird, 
and although continually uttering its melodious cry, 
does not heed a responsive call. 
On the eastern extremity of Long Island, and 
along the coast of New England, are vast rolling 
and hilly stretches of land, where there are no trees 
and little vegetation, besides a short thin grass, and 
here the plovers rest and feed. They migrate to the 
southward in August, and appear about the same 
time scattered from Nantucket to New Jersey. In 
spite of their shyness and the difficulty of killing 
them, they are pursued relentlessly by man with 
every device that he finds will outwit their cunning 
or deceive their vigilance. 
Rhode Island has long been one of their favorite | 
resorts, but has been overrun with gunners, who 
follow the vocation either for sport or pleasure, and 
there, for many years, the grey plover were killed 
in considerable quantities. Many are still found in 
the same locality, or further east, as well as at 
Montauk Point; but at Hempstead Plains, where 
they were once found quite numerous, they appear no 
longer; and the eastern shore of New Jersey being 
unsuited to their habits, they rarely sojourn or even 
pause upon it. They travel as well by night as by 
day ; and in the still summer nights their sweet trill- 
ing cry may be heard at short intervals; while dur- 
ing the day they will often be seen in small bodies, or 
singly, winging their way rapidly towards the south. 
They are wary, fly rapidly, and are difficult to 
shoot, and, were it not for one peculiarity, would 
7* 
