284 GAME BIRDS. WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



fall and crosses from there to the Atlantic coast, where it 

 joins the birds from Ungava and the eastern shore of Hudson 

 Bay. The Atlantic birds winter mainly in the United States, 

 and the Pacific birds are common in winter only as far south 

 as southern California. The future of this species, therefore, 

 is in our hands. It can be protected or exterminated by the 

 people of the United States and Canada. In spring the migra- 

 tion passes more to the westward, and the species appears in 

 numbers on the Great Lakes, becoming rare to the northeast of 

 Massachusetts. It is usually common on our coast in autumn, 

 between September 1 and November 1, and much less com- 

 mon in May. 



No one yet knows where the great majority of these birds 

 reach the Atlantic coast, but from the fact that numbers are 

 seen on the shores of the Great Lakes and in New York and 

 Pennsylvania, and from the other fact that the numbers of 

 the species seen on the coast of South Carolina are much 

 greater than those now seen on the coast of New England, 

 we may surmise that the great body of birds from the Hud- 

 son Bay region crosses the country via the Great Lakes and 

 reaches the coast in the south. It seems probable that the 

 majority of these birds which pass down the New England 

 coast are reared east of Hudson Bay, and that, as in the case 

 of the Knot, overshooting along the Atlantic coast must have 

 reduced greatly the birds that breed in that region. 



The Red-backed Sandpiper feeds largely on worms, crus- 

 taceans and insects. 



CURLEW SANDPIPER (Erolia ferruginea). 



Length. — About 8.50 inches; bill, average, 1.50, slender, and a little curved 



beyond the middle. 

 Adult in Summer. — Above mottled black, gray and rusty; wings and tail 



ashy gray; tail coverts pale buff barred with black; below chestnut. 

 Adult in Winter. — Above plain grayish brown; upper tail coverts white; 



below white; breast with a few indistinct streaks of gray. 

 Young. — Like adult in winter, but feathers above margined with buff or 



whitish; rump dusky; neck streaked with brown. 

 Field Marks. — Resembles the Knot or Red-breast, but smaller and bill 



proportionately longer and more curved. 



