22 WADING BIRDS. 



KILDEER PLOVER. 



(Charadrius vociferus, Lin. Wilson, Am. Orn. vii. p. 73. pi. 59. 



fig. 6. Arct. Zool. No. 400. Phil. Museum, No. 4174.) 

 Sp. Charact. — Dark olive grey; front, collar, and beneath, white j 



a broad ring round the neck, and belt on the breast, black } thie 



rump tawny orange, and the tail wedge-formed. 



The well known, restless, and noisy Kildeer is a common 

 inhabitant throughout the United States, in nearly all parts 

 of which it is known to breed, wintering however, generally 

 to the south of Massachusetts. In the interior, it also pene- 

 trates to the sources of the Mississippi, the remote plains 

 of the Saskatchewan,* and Vieillot met with it even in St. 

 Domingo. On the return of spring, it wanders from the 

 coast, to which it had been confined in winter, and its reit- 

 erated and shrill cry is again heard as it passes through the 

 air, or as it courses the shore of the river, or the low mea- 

 dows in the vicinity of the sea. About the beginning of 

 May, it resorts to the fields, or level pastures, which happen 

 to be diversified with pools of water, and in such situations, 

 or the barren sandy downs in the immediate vicinity of the 

 sea, it fixes upon a place for its nest, which is indeed a 

 mere slight hollow, lined with such straw and dry weeds, as 

 come most convenient. In one instance, Wilson saw a nest 

 of the Kildeer curiously paved and bordered with fragments 

 of clam and oyster shells : at other times no vestige of an 

 artificial nest is visible. The eggs usually 4, large, and 

 pointed at the smaller end, are of a yellowish cream color, 

 thickly marked with blackish blotches. 



At all times noisy and querulous to a proverb, in the 

 breeding season, nothing can exceed their anxiety and 

 alarm ; and the incessant cry of kildeer, kildeer, or te te de 



* Richardson^s Northern Zoology, Part II. p. 368. 



