86 NORTH AMERICAN SHOREBIRDS. 



Paraguay (Sharpe) and Chile (Salvin) , it is probable that these repre- 

 sent casual occurrences and that regularly the species ranges to the 

 Bermudas (Jardine), throughout the West Indies and the neighboring 

 northern coast of Venezuela (Ernst) , but not farther east or south 

 on the Atlantic coast; while on the Pacific it regularly passes south 

 to northwestern Peru (Sclater and Salvin) and the interior of Colom- 

 bia and Medellin (Sclater and Salvin) . The northern winter range 

 extends regularly to North Carolina (Brimley), Tennessee (Gettys), 

 central Texas (Brown), rarely southern Arizona (Mearns), and 

 throughout most of the southern half of California (Fisher) . Casual 

 occurrences have been noted in Maryland (Stabler), Pennsylvania 

 (Burns), and Rhode Island (Mearns). After the great storm of 

 November, 1888, which carried large numbers of killdeer to the 

 New England coast several weeks later than the usual time for 

 their disappearance from that part of their range, many of these 

 birds failed to undertake a second southward migration and remained 

 on the coasts of Massachusetts (Torrey), New Hampshire (Chad- 

 bourne) , and southwestern Maine (Brown) . Most of them perished 

 during the winter, but on the Massachusetts coast a few managed 

 to endure. An occasional killdeer passes a mild winter in southern 

 Ohio (Jones) , southern Indiana (McAtee) , or on the Pacific coast to 

 Washington (Johnson). 



Spring migration. — The killdeer is among the earliest migrants 

 among shorebirds, and is not far behind the earliest migrating land 

 birds. Its loud, piercing, oft-repeated calls make its identification 

 easy, and many data have been accumulated concerning the time of 

 its migrations. These begin in February in the northern part of the 

 winter range, and during that month many crowd northward to the 

 limit of unfrozen ground. Such birds arrive on the average near 

 Asheville, N. C, February 22, earliest February 18, 1893 (Cairns); 

 central Kentucky, February 25, earliest February 19, 1906 (Embody) ; 

 Brookville, Ind., February 23, earliest February 15, 1890 (Butler). 

 The early days of March find the killdeer in full migration far beyond 

 its winter home, and its arrival has been noted as follows: Variety 

 Mills, Va., average March 13, earliest March 2, 1888 (Micklem); 

 White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., average March 9, earliest March 2 

 1891 (Surber); Washington, D. C, average March 18, earliest Feb- 

 ruary 14, 1908 (Hollister) ; Waynesburg, Pa., average March 8, ear- 

 liest February 24, 1891 (Jacobs); Berwyn, Pa., average March 14, 

 earliest January 29, 1889 (Burns); Branchport, N. Y., average 

 March 19, earliest March 1, 1890 (Burtch); Jewett City, Conn., 

 average for twenty-one years March 17, earliest March 2, 1888 (Jen- 

 nings) ; central Rhode Island, average March 19, earliest February 27, 

 1902. Even as far north as Rhode Island, the killdeer is so rare 

 that a market gunner near Newport (Sturtevant) secured only three 

 during eight years while shooting several thousand shorebirds. 



