BLACK-BELLIED, OR SWISS PLOVER. %f 



Plover, it often selects the plowed field for the site of its 

 nest, where the ordinary fare of earth worms, larvse, beetles, 

 and winged insects now abound. The nest, as in most of 

 the birds of this class, is very slightly and quickly made of 

 a few blades of stubble or withered grass, in which are 

 generally deposited four eggs, large for the size of the bird, 

 (being scarcely a line short of two inches in length,) of a 

 cream color slightly inclining to olive, and speckled nearly 

 all over with small spots and blotches of lightish brown, and 

 others of a subdued tint, bordering on lavender purple ; the 

 specks, as usual, more numerous towards the large end. In 

 the more temperate parts of the United States, they have 

 often two broods in the season, though only one in Massa- 

 chusetts, where indeed, their nests are of rare occurrence. 

 During the summer, the young and old now feed much 

 upon various kinds of berries, particularly those of the early 

 bramble, called dew-berries, and their flesh at this time is 

 highly esteemed. About the last week in August, the Betel- 

 Headed Plovers, (as they are called in New England,) 

 descend with their young to the borders of the sea coast, 

 where they assemble in great numbers from all their northern 

 breeding places, now passing an unsettled and roving life, 

 without any motive to local attachment, they crowd to such 

 places as promise them the easiest and surest means of sub- 

 sistence ; at this time small shell-fish, shrimps and other 

 minute marine animals, as well as the grasshoppers, which 

 abound in the fields, constitute their principal fare. 



They are at all times extremely shy and watchful, utter- 

 ing a loud, rather plaintive, whistling note as they fly high 

 and circling in the air, and are so often noisy, particularly 

 in the breeding season, as to have acquired among many of 

 the gunners along the coast, the name of the Black-Bellied 

 Kildeer. From a supposed similarity, probably in the note, 

 it is remarkable, that the inhabitants of the Ferro Islands, 



