BOARD OF GAME AND FISH COMMISSIONERS 
83 
WESTERN WILLET. Formerly a common summer resident throughout the 
prairie portion of the state and farther east in sparsely wooded areas. It is now 
uncommon but small flocks have been occasionally met with during the last eight 
or ten years, even as far eastward as Hennepin County. (Five were shot from 
a flock at the Long Meadow Gun Club sloughs about 1909 by Garry Van Nest.) 
It was common and breeding in Grant and Traverse counties in June, 1879 
(Roberts and Benner), and Cantwell found it “numerous and noisy everywhere 
on the mud-flats” in Lac qui Parle County in May, 1889. It is still abundant 
farther west but has almost disappeared from our state. 
UPLAND PLOVER; BARTRAMIAN SANDPIPER OR TATTLER; FIELD 
PLOVER. To recite the history of the Upland Plover in Minnesota is to tell a 
sad tale of dreadful slaughter and destruction that has resulted in the almost com¬ 
plete extermination of this valuable and once abundant bird. Fifty years ago it 
was present all through the summer, everywhere in open country, in countless 
thousands. Now it is nearing extinction. Here and there an occasional breed¬ 
ing pair may yet be found, but they are lonely occupants of the places where 
their ancestors dwelt in vast numbers. The fact that they were an excellent table 
bird, were tame and unsuspicious, raised only a single brood of four each year 
and were unprotected at the lime when most easily killed, constituted conditions, 
which, taken together, led surely and rapidly to their disappearance. In the early 
seventies they were one of the most common and noticeable birds on the prairies 
about Minneapolis. In those days a small sandy prairie bordering a little lake 
known as Sandy Lake and lying just north of the city (long since thickly settled 
and included as an outlying suburb under the name of Shoreham) was a favorite 
congregating place of these birds in July and August and the writer has figures to 
show that 152, probably many more, Upland Plover were shot on this limited area 
between July 27 and August 13, 1874. No one thought seriously of such practices 
in those days, just as a hunter at that time did not feel guilty after killing fifty 
or sixty Wild Pigeons in a morning. The controlling conscience of the true sports¬ 
man had not been generally aroused, nor had a realization come to many of 
what must be the inevitable result. 
In May, 1893, the writer visited Jackson and Pipestone counties and Upland 
Plovers were present everywhere on the prairie. A return visit was made in 
1899 and they were gone—the incessant and musical “qua-a-a-ily, qua-a-a-ily” of 
the hovering birds was a voice of the past. Stories were rife, wTether true or 
not is not positively known, that market hunters from eastern cities had come 
into those parts and had killed the Plover in great numbers in the nesting season 
and shipped them back to wholesale dealers, by whom they were in great demand 
for home and foreign sale. 
A. D. Brown of Pipestone, writing from that place in June, 1900, said that he 
had not seen a pair of Upland Plover that year. In June, 1901, they were still 
fairly numerous in the sparsely settled eastern portion of Marshall County (Dart) 
and the same year two pairs were found in the nesting season near Parker’s Lake, 
just north of Minneapolis, by Wm. Kilgore, Jr. On June 2, 1918, Lawrence L. 
Lofstrom found a nest and eggs of this species near Anoka, which was left un¬ 
disturbed. So, apparently, a few are left of the former multitudes. Complete 
protection is afforded by the present law but if it is to be effective it will have 
to be well enforced and continued for a long time, and it is doubtful that, 
