BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 337 



not only on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, but in the interior 

 from Ohio at least to the Dakotas and Texas. The southward 

 movement begins early in July. Dr. Townsend records an 

 arrival in Essex County, Mass., on July 15. The adult birds 

 come first and sometimes reach Massachusetts the latter half 

 of the month; but their greatest wave of migration reaches 

 here and passes Cape Cod in August. The young begin to 

 arrive about September 1, accompanied by some adults. Sep- 

 tember is the month of greatest plenty, and the birds often con- 

 tinue to come in numbers well into October. The records 

 of the Chatham Beach Hotel show this plainly. Three were 

 killed on Monomoy in December, 1872, supposedly wintering. 

 The latest migration dates recorded are Essex County, Novem- 

 ber 10; Cape Cod, November 14. 



This Plover was once very abundant here in migration. 

 Nuttall (1834) says that flocks of more than one thousand 

 gathered by the middle of September on the Chelsea (now 

 Revere) marshes, near Boston. The following condensed notes 

 record their decrease: Appears the last of September; collects 

 in great flocks (Peabody, 1839). Early in autumn very abun- 

 dant at Montauk (Giraud, Long Island, N. Y., 1844). Gener- 

 ally abundant during migrations; sometimes not even common 

 (Maynard, eastern Massachusetts, 1870). More or less com- 

 mon in spring and fall (J. A. Allen, 1879). The constant 

 gunning of the past few years has decreased their numbers in 

 this location (Monomoy) and on Long Island (Sanford, Bishop 

 and Van Dyke, 1903). Still common, but few remain in com- 

 parison with the hosts of former days (C. W. Townsend, Essex 

 County, Mass., 1905). Sixty-eight of my Massachusetts cor- 

 respondents find this bird decreasing; twelve find it increasing. 



As the birds of this species which go down the Atlantic 

 coast in the fall apparently retrace the same route in the 

 spring, the abolition of spring shooting in a few of the Atlantic 

 coast States has stayed the depletion of their numbers some- 

 what, and they have held their own in Massachusetts better 

 than has the Golden Plover, which on its return north through 

 the Mississippi valley region in spring has been subject to tre- 

 mendous slaughter. If spring shooting were prohibited in all 



