31 



The food of the kilideer consists of earthworms and insects of which small 

 beetles form the greater part. A brood of these birds containing four young and 

 the two parents will relieve a farm of an enormous number of insect pests every 

 day. I have frequently found the stomachs of these birds to be completely filled 

 with weevils Avhieh the}- had obtained from orchards where clean cultivation had 

 been practised. Towards autumn the broods leave the high, dry fields and gather 

 into small scattered parties on river-side meadows and sandy shores, v.here they 

 remain until the first frost. 



PLOVEE. 



Description. 



GOLDEX PLOVER. 



Adult in summer. Upper parts mottled black, greenish, golden yellow and a 

 little white, the yellow in excess; tail brownish gray indistinctly barred with 

 whitish; sides of breast white; sides of head and under parts black: under wing- 

 coverts ashy gray. Bill and feet black. Toes three. 



Adult in winter and immature. Upper parts and i.ail dusky, sMotted and 

 barred with yellow or whitish, the colours duller than in summer; under parts 

 grayish white, throat and sides of head streaked, breast and sides of body mottled 

 with dusky grayish brown ; legs dusky. 



L., 10.50; W., .7.00: T., 2.75. 



Nest, on the ground, in Arctic regions. Eggs, four buffy drab spotted and 

 splashed with very dark brown, chiefly at the larger end. 



KILLDEEE. 



Above grayish brown, with a greenisli tinge, most of the feathers tipped with 

 tawny; upper tail coverts bright Tufous; inner tail feathers grayish brovrn, outer 

 ones rufous and white, all tipped with black and white; secondaries mostly white; 

 primaries with a white space; a black bar across the crown; forehead white: two 

 black bands on neck and breast, otherwise entire under parts white. Tail rounded 

 at end; eyelids scarlet. 



L., 10; W., 6.50; T., 3.50. 



Nest on the ground. Eggs, four, clay colour, heavily marked with b!acki>h 

 brown. 



CEOWS, BLACKBIEDS, OEIOLES, ETC. 



Some of the species comprised in these two families of birds are chai\ged with 

 being amongst the worst of the feathered enemies of the farmer. The niischief 

 they do is plainly visible ; the good not always seen. When the Crow visits the 

 corn field in the spring, and is seen digging into the hills, abstracting the lialC 

 sprouted grain, and when the Blackbirds in clouds alight on the ripe wlieat and 

 oats, eating much and threshing out more, so that it is lost to its lawful owner, 

 it is not to be wondered at that the farmer loses his tem]>er and says in his Avratli 

 that all birds are a nuisance; but these birds also do some good, though, as they 

 have not acquired the knack of advertising it, their benefits are quite overlooked. 

 If their case is tried impartially it may 'be found that even the Crow, like another 

 celebrated personage, is not quite "so black as he is painted." I do not think the 

 merits of the Crows, or any of the so-called blackbird family, will he found suffi- 

 ciently great to entitle them to protection, hut their faults scarcely warrant their 

 extermination, except in the ease of the cow-bird, to be spoken of hereafter. 



