234 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



History. 



Wilson says that the Stilt arrives on the coast of New 

 Jersey about the 25th of April, in flocks of twenty or thirty, 

 and that six or eight pairs breed together. No doubt this was 

 true in the early part of the nineteenth century, but it long 

 ago ceased to be so. Audubon (1838) did not find it abundant 

 anywhere, and said that it seldom was seen to the eastward of 

 Long Island. De Kay (1844) said that the bird was then not 

 a very common visitor to New York, and that it still bred in 

 New Jersey and "possibly in New York [Long Island]," but 

 appeared everywhere to be rare. Since then it nearly has dis- 

 appeared from the Atlantic coast north of southern Georgia 

 and Florida. C. J. Maynard (Massachusetts, 1870) says on 

 the authority of gunners that it occasionally is seen along 

 sandy beaches. This evidence may be taken for what it is 

 worth. There is no record that the bird ever bred in Mas- 

 sachusetts, and possibly it never was much more than a wan- 

 derer to these shores from the middle States. Mr. Boardman 

 states that it was seen occasionally but rarely at Calais, Me., 

 and Dr. Brewer (1884) asserts that several specimens have 

 been taken at Grand Manan, N. B., and that "occasional 

 instances of its capture near Boston are known." There is 

 but one record of the capture of a specimen in Maine. Dr. 

 Allen records two specimens as taken in Massachusetts, which 

 were found in Boston market.^ There is a specimen in the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, Mass., 

 labeled Lynn.^ There are no New York records for the past 

 fifty years. 



This large, handsome and striking wader has been brought 

 to the verge of extermination along the Atlantic coast by 

 spring and summer shooting, as have all the larger waders 

 that once bred there. 



» Allen, J. A.: Amer. Nat., 1870, p. 638. 



2 Howe, R. H., and Allen, G. M.: Birds of Mass., p. 34. 



