42 
practice of “ fire lighting ” prevailed. Two men together, 
one with a lantern and the other with a hag, would creep on 
the flocks at night. While one man dazzled the birds’ eyes 
with the lantern, the other caught them, and, biting their 
necks to kill them, put them into the hag. Six barrels of 
these little birds taken in this manner were seen at one time 
on the deck of the Cape Cod packet for Boston. Barrels of 
birds which were spoiled during the voyage were sometimes 
thrown overboard in Boston harbor. The price of the birds 
at that time was but ten cents per dozem 1 
The willet, or humility, as it is called along shore, one of 
the great tattlers, was probably one of the birds referred to 
by the early settlers, under the same name, as flocking on our 
coasts in vast numbers. “ These birds were very plentiful at 
Wellfleet, and there were a good many at Ipswich, but lately 
they have been growing rare. I have seen several within 
five or six years.” (Gerry.) “ Sixty years ago the willet 
was abundant, and bred here. Fifteen to eighteen years ago 
a few were seen each season. Now they are gone; only an 
occasional straggler now seen.” (Mackay.) “ Nearly ex- 
terminated.” (Perkins.) 
The greater and the lesser yellowlegs are still fairly com- 
mon in some seasons and localities, but they were once very 
abundant; and they are probably still decreasing, in spite 
of the protection afforded them on some of their northern 
breeding grounds. u The lesser yellowlegs have fallen off on 
Nantucket 60 per cent in fifteen years, and the winter yellow- 
legs about the same. There also has been a considerable 
falling off in the number of these birds from Massachusetts 
sources in the Boston market.” (Mackay.) The yellow- 
legs were the only shore birds reported as common in the 
flight in Rhode Island in 1904. 2 
The Bartramian sandpiper, commonly known as the up- 
land plover, a bird which formerly bred on grassy hills all 
over the State and migrated southward along our coasts in 
great flocks, is in imminent danger of extirpation. Thirty- 
five years ago these birds bred commonly within the city 
1 “ Observations on the Knot,” Geo. H. Mackay, Auk, Vol. X, January, 1893, p. 29. 
2 Since spring shooting has been prohibited by law in New York, Connecticut and 
Massachusetts, larger flights of yellowlegs are seen, particularly in spring. 
