A. ELMER CROWELL, EAST HARWICH, MASSACHUSETTS, 1918

In her discussion of the decoys in the Guennol Collection in the 1982 Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition catalogue, Adele Earnest writes, "Crowell made few golden plover decoys because few were needed. The 'golden' in fall migration rarely touched land. The birds nested and raised their young in summer in the Arctic, and in August they assembled in flocks and proceeded to Nova Scotia where they took off over the open water of the Atlantic in a straight course, three thousand miles to the pampas of Argentina, unless a storm blew them off course and they came down in such places as Nantucket Island and Cape Cod, where they responded readily to well-placed decoys. The golden plover in the collection is from Crowell's best early period. Carved from one piece of wood, each contour conveys the softness of the live bird. The head is raised and gently turned. The wing tips are free, lightly grooved and serrated. The gleaming plumage of deep umber is accented on the back with touches of green gold. This eight-inch 'golden', the smallest of the plovers, is a rare gem" (pp. 263-264).