20 
SHORE BIRDS. 
scribed in such narrow limits as the Lesser Antilles. Their 
range embraces nearly the whole of the West India islands. 
A letter from C. W. H., of Turk’s Island, is of such general 
interest that we make from it a very liberal extract: “Golden 
plover, sometimes in large numbers, a few upland plover and 
curlew also arrive here from the North regularly about the 
end of August or 1st of September, and remain with us gen¬ 
erally from four to six weeks, although a few stragglers stop 
a little longer. If these latter happen to be golden plover, 
after a short time they lose their yellow and pretty-marked 
dark-mottled plumage, and don a gray suit of feathers, look¬ 
ing like quite a different bird from what they did when they 
first arrived here, and are then sometimes called ‘ gray plo¬ 
ver.’ These birds go South from us, and they evidently 
pursue some other route going North, as we never see them 
taking flight in that direction. I have often heard old sea 
captains remark that they saw flocks of these birds in the 
autumn going South, but never in a single instance have they 
met them going North at any time of year.” 
Mr. C. B. Cory, in “ Birds of the Bahama Islands,” gives 
a similar list to that of the Barbadoes, but under somewhat 
different synonyms. He does not, however, recognize the 
godwits, curlew, Tringa bartramia. or Tringa canutits, as 
visitants of the Bahamas, nor are the former found in the 
Barbadoes catalogue. The godwits and sickle-billed curlew 
are rather clumsy flying birds, and it is possible very few 
reach these remote islands, but Tringa bartramia (Wils.) T. 
canutus and Numenius borealis are among the migrants whose 
“range” is the widest of all the shore birds, and we cannot 
account for their non-observance on any other ground than 
by supposing that at the time of his arrival, late in Decem¬ 
ber, these birds had mostly departed South. He had to rely 
on the authority of Dr. Bryant, Mr. Moore and others, for 
information of these birds during their migrating season, 
September and October. His winter observations lead him 
to believe that a few of several species each pass the winter 
on those lovely islands. He does not, however, seem to find 
any of them abundant at that season, except the two least 
