From my blind in the Hole-in-the-Wall on Shinnecock Bay, Long Island, I saw at different intervals perhaps twenty of these magnificent birds. That was between 1886 and 1890 and they were even then far too wary to come within gunshot. In October, 1895, I steered the sloop Phalarope into a creek back of Raccoon Key, south of Cape Romaine, and ran full tilt into a flock of about twenty that had settled for the night. My intrusion did not cause much excitement; they gathered with a few protesting calls and faded into nothing against the sunset sky. Their longdrawn mellow whistle curl — ee — ee — wu — wu once heard always will be linked in memory with the wide, free meadows and open spaces of the world.

"Like the wind's breath — seldom resting."