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Dwight, Moult of North American Shore Birds. 
fAuk 
LOct. 
THE MOULT OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SHORE 
BIRDS (LIMICOL^E). 
BY DR. JONATHAN DWIGHT, JR. 
The Limicolae of North America constitute a large group of 
closely related species which also greatly resemble each other in 
their successive plumages and moults. Probably the best known 
of them are the Sandpipers, Yellow-legs, Curlews, Plovers, and 
others included under the popular name of ‘ Bay-snipe ’ which 
frequent our seashores, although the Woodcock and the Snipe 
may be more familiar acquaintances to the average sportsman. 
They are all birds of strong flight, and the bulk of them, breed- 
ing in Arctic regions, push southward in flocks in the autumn 
and again northward in the spring. In their migration many 
of them cross the equator in both hemispheres, some even reach- 
ing Patagonia and South Africa. As a result of this long line 
of migration, in some species, thousands of miles in length, they 
appear to tarry but for a brief period on the journey, so that in 
most cases we know little of their plumages other than their 
migration dress, and still less of the moults by which changes 
are effected. In fact, so little has been known that belief in 
extensive color changes in old feathers, especially in cosmopolitan 
species, has prevailed, although such belief now proves to be 
groundless because contrary to facts which, it may be said, are 
none too well known. The reasons are not far to seek. There 
is a great scarcity in collections of birds which show actual moult, 
and there is an even greater scarcity of adults in winter plumage, 
so it has escaped notice that young birds and old, after a certain 
period in the fall, are practically indistinguishable, and, what 
is more, males and females assume an almost identical plumage. 
This sometimes renders difficult an explanation of the midwinter 
moult which takes place, apparently in all species. It is un- 
doubtedly complete, to the flight-feathers and tails in most young 
birds, and apparently is confined to the body-feathers in adults, 
although it is possible that some species undergo a complete 
moult in adults as well as young. 
