158 CONSERVATION OF CANADIAN WILD LIFE 
five years under the Migratory Birds Convention. All the 
plovers are valuable to the agriculturalist, as they feed on 
grasshoppers, cutworms, white grubs, and other pests of 
our field and garden crops. The black-bellied plover is a 
fall migrant in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; in Quebec 
and Ontario it appears both in spring and fall, but in the 
Prairie Provinces it is a spring migrant. It breeds on the 
Arctic coast, and winters from California southward to 
Brazil and Peru. 
The golden plover breeds along the Arctic coast from 
Alaska to the northwest coast of Hudson Bay, including the 
Barren Grounds. In the fall it travels southward to spend 
the winter chiefly in Brazil and Argentina. It is a common 
migrant in the fall in the eastern provinces, and in the 
Prairie Provinces it appears as a migrant in both spring 
and fall. Formerly the golden plover was perhaps the 
most abundant of all the shore-birds, vast flocks sweeping 
northward and southward across the continent in their 
long migratory journeys. But excessive hunting has reduced 
them to but a small fraction of their former numbers. 
Audubon estimated that in the annual slaughter that he 
witnessed in 1821, near New Orleans, about 48,000 plovers 
were killed in one day. 
Sandpipers.—This group includes about half of the shore- 
birds. They are chiefly small birds frequenting the edges 
of stream, river, lake, and sea. In spite of their small size 
they have been killed in thousands to satisfy the palates of 
the epicures. Now all species, with the exception of the 
greater and lesser yellowlegs, are protected for five years. 
Among the commoner species may be mentioned the fol- 
lowing: 
The Semipalmated Sandpiper.—This is a common niigrant 
in the fall along the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence. In the western provinces they appear in the 
spring on their journey to their northern breeding-grounds, 
