346 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



the countries towards the mountains ; seems particularly attached to 

 newly ploughed fields, where it forms its nests of a few slight mate- 

 rials ; lays four eggs, and has frequently two broods in the same sea- 

 son. They feed on worms, grubs, winged insects, and various kinds 

 of berries, particularly dewberries, and are considered excellent eat- 

 ing. About the beginning of September they abound on the plains 

 of Long Island, and afford considerable amusement to the cockney 

 sportsmen, who generally make their approaches to the birds by 

 means of wagons. They have a loud whistling note; often fly at a 

 great height ; and are called by many gunners along the coast the 

 Black-bellied Kildeer. 



Golden Plover. This beautiful species visits the coast of New 

 York and New Jersey in spring and autumn ; but does not, as far as 

 has been discovered, breed in any part of the United States. Al- 

 though they are occasionally found along our coast from Georgia to 

 Maine, yet they are no where numerous ; and we have never met 

 with them in the interior. 



Kildeer Plover. This restless and noisy bird is known to almost 

 every inhabitant of the United States, being a common and pretty 

 constant resident. During the severity of winter, when snow covers 

 the ground, it retreats to the seashore, where it is found at all sea- 

 sons ; but no sooner has the ice of the rivers broken up, than its 

 shrill notes are again heard, either roaming about high in air, tracing 

 the shore of the river, or running amidst the watery flats and mea- 

 dows. Nothing can exceed the alarm and anxiety of these birds 

 during the breeding season. Their cries of kildeer, kildeer, as they 

 winnow the air over head, dive and course around you, or run along 

 the ground counterfeting lameness, are shrill and incessant. They 

 lay usually four eggs, of a yellowish clay colour, thickly marked with 

 blotches of black. 



Pied Oyster-catcher. This singular species, although no where 

 numerous, inhabits almost every sea shore, both on the new and the 

 old continent, but is never found inland. It is the only one of its 

 genus hitherto discovered. It frequents the sandy sea beach of New 

 Jersey, and other parts of our Atlantic coast, in summer, in smal 

 parties of two or three pairs together. They are extremely shy, 

 and except about the season of breeding, will seldom permit a per- 

 son to approach within gunshot. They walk along the shore in a 

 watchful stately manner, at times probing it with their long wedge- 

 like bills in search of small shell-fish. The small crabs called Fid- 

 dlers, that burrow in the mud at the bottom of inlets, are frequently 

 the prey of the Oyster-catcher; as are muscles, spout-fish, and a 

 variety of other shell-fish and sea insects with which those shores 

 abound. The principal food, however, of this bird, according to 

 European writers, and that from which it derives its name, is the 

 Oyster, which it is said to watch for, and snatch suddenly from the 

 shells, whenever it surprises them sufficiently open. For this pur- 

 pose the form of its bill seems very fitly calculated. Yet the truth 

 of these accounts is doubted by the inhabitants of Egg-harbour, and 

 other parts of our coast, who positively assert that it never frequents 

 oyster-beds, but confines itself almost solely to the sands ; and this 

 opinion I am inclined to believe correct, having myself uniformly 

 found these birds on the smooth beach bordering the* ocean, and on 

 the higher dry and level sands, just beyond the reach of the summer 



