THE OTTAWA NATURALIST 



Vol. XXVI. AUG.-SEPT.. 1912 Nos. 5 and 6 



POPULAR AND PRACTICAL ORNITHOLOGY. 



III. The Upland Plover. 



By Norm ax Criddle, Treesbank, Man. 



When viewed from a short distance. Upland Plovers might 

 be described, briefly, as grayish-brown above; the colour in 

 reality, is made up of gray -brown and black markings. Beneath, 

 thev are white with black arrowhead-shaped dashes on the 

 upper breast and along the sides. They average about twelve 

 inches in length. 



This plover, so far as Canada is concerned, is a bird of the 

 Middle West and though it is found in migration, casually, from 

 coast to coast, its chief breeding grounds are western Manitoba 

 and eastern Saskatchewan, extending, however, southward to 

 Virginia and northwesterly to Alaska. It winters in Mexico 

 and South America. 



This bird has previously passed under a variety of names, 

 many of them local. Until recently, it has been known as 

 Bartramians Sandpiper. The popular tongue however, was 

 never able to master such a cumberous title and so the A.O.U. 

 changed it to one more easily uttered and which was already in 

 common use in various parts of the bird's range. The name, as 

 it is, is also a very appropriate one, applying as it does to a bird 

 that is decidedly upland in habit, preferring the dry prairies 

 which are broken by small bluffs, particularly if the land be 

 sandy. There is reason to suspect, however, that this prefer- 

 ence for sandy soil is, after all, due not so much to an actual 

 liking for the soil as for the food found upon it. Such soil, on 

 account of its extra heat and inability to support as dense a 

 vegetation as the richer land, proves much more suitable for 

 the breeding locusts, more particularly those species that lay 

 their eggs in the ground. Here they flourish and if not checked, 

 often become troublesome pests. Now, the chief food of Upland 

 Plovers is these very members of the order Orthoptera locusts, 

 grasshoppers or any other of the hopper tribe. Hence, the 

 association is more than probable due to food considerations. 



