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A heavy flight of Killdeer Plover has been attract- 
ing considerable attention. They appeared the 28tli 
of November at Nantucket, Chatham, and other 
points on Cape Cod, and in scattering bunches made 
their way all along the coast up to Essex. They 
were driven in by the storm and seemed in no hurry 
to depart. Killdeer have been of late quite scarce in 
this locality, and the question is, where did they 
come from ? 
They were offered in the Boston market at one 
dollar a dozen, but when it was found that '‘those 
taxidermist chaps ” were after them, the price rapid- 
ly advanced. 
O.&Q. XIII, Dec. isos p / 9 / 
At the last meeting of the Boston Scientific Society, 
Mr. F. A. Bates called attention to the effect of the 
great gale of Nov. 25 upon birds. The killdeer plover, 
a bird formerly quite common in New England, but 
of late years exceedingly rare, was found by sports- 
men along the South Shore by the hundred. Quan- 
tities of them were killed and exposed for sale in the 
■ markets at exceedingly reasonable prices. The 
birds were in good condition, showing that they I\ad 
not been without food for a very long time, but they 
were nevertheless very hungry, and easily ap-_ 
proached by sportsmen, The habitat of these birdsC 
at the present season is nowhere to the north of the 
Carolinas, so that, if from those regions, they were q 
ibrought hundreds of miles in a comparatively short 
time. But the storm did not so affect even Florida 
as to make certain that the birds were from this lo- 
cality. Traces of food in the stomachs of some 
of the birds may, when critically examined, afford 
evidence of the origin of this extraordinary visita- 
tion of birds, about which so little is known at pres- 
ent . — ( Boston Transcript .) 
“Information is requested on the occurrence of the 
Killdeer Plover on the coast north of Boston during 
or after the storm.” [The stomachs ol these birds, 
upon dissection, were found to contain remains of in- 
sects, principally Coleoptera.] [Ed.] 
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The Killdeer Plover (SEgialitis vocifera') wintering on the New England 
Coast. — On the 28th of January, 1889, I discovered seven Killdeer Plovers 
in a small meadow in Marblehead, where they remained throughout the 
winter. X visited the place four times in February, and found them al- 
ways present. My last sight of them was March 1 (six birds), but Mr. 
Walter Faxon, who had previously seen them on several occasions, found 
a single individual as late as March 7. They were doubtless a part of the 
great flock blown upon the New England coast by the storm of November 
25-27, as already more than once mentioned in ‘The Auk.’ The seasofi 
was very open and mild (although February averaged rather colder than 
usual), and the spot was exceptionally favorable. So far as I could judge, 
the birds suffered no inconvenience from whatwe may presume to have been 
a somewhat involuntary sojourn in this latitude. 
Mrs. Celia Thaxter assures me that the Killdeers remained at the Isles, 
of Shoals, also, throughout the winter,— “till the very last week in Feb- 
ruary, growing fewer and fewer and finally disappearing altogether.” 
Her authorities for the statement are her brother and another resident of 
the Shoals, one of whom, early in December, shot a bird, parts of which 
(a wing, etc.) she sent to me for identification. — Bradford Torrey, 
^ Melrose Highlands, Mass. Auk, VI. July, 1889. V>. ^ - IT 6~. 
A Killdeer ( rEgialitis vocifera ) in the vicinity of Cambridge, Mass. 
On the 19th of October, 1901, we identified a Killdeer ( Mdgialitis vocifera ) 
in a large ploughed field in Belmont, Massachusetts. Although we had 
no means of securing the specimen its identification is certain since we 
flushed it three times at close range, getting good views of the rufous 
tail-coverts. We also saw clearly the marks on the breast and heard the 
call-note. 
Accoi ding to Messrs. Howe and Allen’s ‘Birds of Massachusetts’ there 
are only two previous records in the vicinity of Cambridge, both of which 
were in September. — Howard M. Turner, Richard S. Eustis, Cam- 
bridge, Mass. Auk, XIX, Jan., 1902, p. 78 . L • 
