Vo, '5l9 XVI ] Robbing, Cape Cod Piping Plover. 351 



A COLONY OF CAPE COD PIPING PLOVER. 



BY C. A. ROBBINS. 



The Piping Plover (Mgialitis meloda) is the only beach-inhabit- 

 ing member of the family that breeds within the limits of New 

 England. To former generations of residents along the coast 

 their rather plaintive call was a familiar summer sound. Then, 

 because the gunner had marked them for his own, there came a 

 time when long stretches of their breeding grounds grew silent 

 and as the silence spread over an ever-lengthening area it began 

 to be feared that they might — like other species of shore birds — 

 entirely disappear. 



Happily the fear is not likely to be realized. On the contrary, 

 it is gratifying to note, in some places, a generous increase in their 

 numbers. 



This is due mainly to the protection which the law is now afford- 

 ing them, although the steadily growing interest in the welfare 

 of all birds has doubtless aided, both directly and indirectly. It 

 may pretty confidently be expected therefore that they will reappear 

 in other localities which have long been bare of them and that in 

 those most favorable there will be a return to something like their 

 former abundance. 



The shores of Cape Cod are mostly gentle slopes of clean beach 

 with a belt of stony or pebbly sand extending back above the rows 

 of drift, which mark the upper reaches of the tide, to a growth of 

 beach-pea and sand-grass (Ammophila). This, in turn, often 

 meets and over-runs a rise of low dunes beyond. 



Spots of this kind are chosen by these birds for their summer 

 homes. One such on the Bay side of the Cape and near its base, 

 varying from the conventional character only in having on the 

 inland side of the narrow wall of dunes a shoal brackish pond of 

 an acre or more, has lately become really populous with them. 

 On a section of beach bounded on one side by an inlet and on the 

 other by a break in the chain of dunes and containing possibly 

 four acres there were this past season (1918) not less than nine 



