Shore-bird Shooting 303 



lina, — what could these beaches tell of shore-birds 

 and man's wantonness ! It is the same old story, 

 oft repeated in these pages. They are gone ; a 

 vestige remains and follows the migratory courses 

 south, but the hordes of the past will never again 

 be seen. Many of the commonest have become 

 rare. Flocks of golden plover once blackened 

 the air along our shores, now few are seen ; the 

 Eskimo curlew has suddenly disappeared ; the 

 godwits and the long-billed curlew are hardly 

 stragglers on the eastern coast. Sportsmen and 

 gunners still hunt the remnant. Shore-bird shoot- 

 ing has so changed in the past few years that the 

 descriptions of former, even recent, haunts seem 

 almost strange. 



In 1886 I spent a summer at Monomoy Island, 

 Cape Cod. We stayed at the branting shanties 

 in charge of Alonzo Nye. It was early in 

 August, the weather had been steadily hot, and 

 on our arrival there were but few birds on the 

 flats: some turnstone, dowitchers, and several 

 small flocks of plover were all ; but with the next 

 few days there was a change, and by the 10th 

 of August blackbreast swarmed. There were 

 thousands, and other big birds in proportion. At 

 that time, close to the branting shanties was a 

 cut-through, an opening from the ocean into the 

 bay, and where it broadened on to the flats were 

 patches of sedge, the remnants of an old marsh. 



