332 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



Atlantic coast from May to August (Brewer, 1884). While on 

 my way through these marshes (between Cobbs Island and 

 the mainland in the spring of 1885), frightening into the air 

 clouds of these big birds, more in a minute than I had seen 

 before in my whole life, it impressed me oddly to hear my 

 boatman complaining over yearly decrease (Trumbull, 1888). 

 Cannot be considered a common bird; more frequent than 

 the Long-bill (Stearns, New England, 1887). Becoming fewer 

 in number every year (Samuels, 1897). Uncommon migrant 

 on coast (Hoffmann, New York and New England, 1904). 

 Rare spring and uncommon fall migrant (G. M. Allen, Massa- 

 chusetts, 1909). 



Mackay (1892), who has published the best account ever 

 written of the habits of this species, states in The Auk that 

 reliable accounts show that in the summer of 1833 some fifteen 

 hundred of these birds passed the season on the islands of 

 Nantucket and Tuckernuck, while for the seventeen years 

 previous to 1892 he never saw more than one hundred on 

 the average annually, and in the later years even this number 

 had decreased. 



Twenty-two of my correspondents in Massachusetts have 

 seen a decrease of this species within their experience, and 

 seven find it increasing in their localities. Its increase 

 seems to be greatest on Cape Cod. The main reason for its 

 preservation is plain. Though formerly a tame and unsus- 

 picious bird, it has developed a remarkable faculty of taking 

 care of itself, and there is no shore bird to-day more difficult 

 to take and of which fewer are killed according to its numbers. 

 Young birds of the first year sometimes may be approached 

 readily, but the adult birds are so shy that few gunners find 

 that it pays to hunt them. They are indifferent food at best, 

 and for this reason there is little market demand. 



This species migrates the entire length of both continents, 

 from the Arctic Ocean to the Straits of Magellan; it is com- 

 mon in Patagonia. It frequents mainly the wilder places, 

 little inhabited by man, breeds in the far north and so per- 

 petuates its race. 



This species breeds, as did the Eskimo Curlew, on the 



