CLARK: LESSER ANTILLEAN BIRDS. 
249 
beginning of August, but the main flights come with the first heavy 
weather after August 27, and long experience and observation prove 
that this date is kept year after year with wonderful accuracy. The 
course of all the migratory Charadriidae across Barbados in the 
autumn is from the northwest to southeast, and if the wind blows 
from the southeast, the birds are brought down to the island, for it 
appears to be a tolerably well established observation that birds pre¬ 
fer migrating with a * beam ’ wind. A shift of wind from the north¬ 
east, with squally weather to the southeast, is ardently longed for 
by the Barbados sportsmen towards the end of August, as this 
forces the migratory hosts to alight instead of passing over at a 
great height, as they are seen to do when the wind is from the 
northeast. The first arrivals of this species are invariably black¬ 
breasted birds, showing that the old birds precede the young; and 
the first comers are nearly all males. The young birds without 
black on the breast appear about September 12, and continue to pass 
till the end of October; sometimes stragglers are as late as Novem¬ 
ber. Even in the most favorable seasons, only a fraction of the 
immense flights that pass over the island ever alight; but if, attracted 
by the green land and ‘ mock-birds ’ pegged out near the shooter’s 
hut, they deviate from their line of flight, they are doomed; for so 
well do the sportsmen imitate the call of the Golden Plover, and so 
irresistible is the charm, that the birds come down to it, and, in 
spite of gaps in their ranks, they wheel round and dash past the 
shooter again and again till all are killed.” 
This bird is not abundant on St. Vincent, but is common on the 
Grenadines and on Grenada, although Wells says the numbers are 
becoming fewer and fewer every year. 
Oxyechus vociferus (Linn.). Killdeer. — Wells records the 
Killdeer from Carriacou and from Grenada as a “rare migrant.” It 
is probably casual in all these islands. 
Aegialitis semipalmata (Bonap.). Ring-necked Plover.— 
Common in all these islands, arriving toward the end of August, 
and remaining until November, frequenting the beaches and pas¬ 
tures, often in company with the smaller sandpipers. 
Aegialitis hiaticula (Linn.). Ring Plover. — Recorded by 
Col. Feilden from Barbados, one having been obtained by him 
which was killed at Chancery Lane, September 10, 1888. This is 
the only record for the species south of Canada on the American 
side of the Atlantic. 
