h 



WATER BIRDS. 215 



117. Ring-necked Plover, i^gialitis semipalmata (Bonap.). (274) 



Synonyms: Semipalmated Plover, Ring-neck, Ring Plover, Beach Bird. — Charadrius 

 semipalmatus, Bonap., 1825. — ^gialitis semipalmatus, Cab., 1856, and authors generally. 

 — ^Tringa hiaticula, Wils. 



Figure 58. 



A small plover readily known by its grayish brown back and the com- 

 plete white collar above a similar black one of about the same width. 



Distribution. — Arctic and Subarctic America, migrating south throughout 

 tropical America, as far as Brazil, Peru and the Galapagos. 



A common bird of the lake shores in spring and again in late summer, 

 and regularly, though less often, seen along the shores of streams and 

 about mud flats in the interior of the state. It 



arrives from the south during May, lingers until after -^ 



the first of June (sometimes until after the middle) . ^^ '^ \ 



goes north to breed, and is back again by the middle ^ ^^ 



of July, remaining here and there through August 



and September. Sometimes it is seen in pairs or 



even singly, but usually it appears in small flocks of 



six to thirty individuals, and these feed and fly 



together, seemingly unwilhng to be separated even for . 



° ' ° -^ ° ^ Fig. 5S. KiiiK-in-tkcil 



a moment. Plover. From Bailey's 



Unlike most of our plover this species seems to be un- ^|^fJJo°^.f aioughton! 

 happy away from water, and I do not remember ever Mifflin & Co. 

 to have met with it except along the water's edge. It 

 associates commonly with sandpipers and other shore birds and we have 

 found it in Ingham county almost always with the Least Sandpiper and 

 the Semipalmated. In Nebraska, however, it must frequent the prairies 

 as well as the margins of ponds and streams, for Professor Aughey found 

 it feeding freely on the Rocky Mountain locust in 1865, 1874 and 1875, 

 and every stomach examined in those years contained large numbers of 

 these locusts, with comparatively few other insects; the average number 

 of locusts in each stomach was fifty-three (1st Rep. U. S. Entom. Com., 

 App. 2, p. 49). 



There is no hkelihood at all that it ever nests within our limits, and it is 

 not possible that the birds which leave us late in June are the same which 

 return by the middle of July; on the contrary, it is probable that those which 

 return to us earliest are the ones which went north early in May, while 

 those which linger with us until June do not reappear until September. 

 This, however, is mainly conjecture. 



It nests in the far north, and a nest described by Eifrig (Auk, XXII, 

 1905, 239) was found at Fullerton, on Hudson Bay, July 1, 1904, and was 

 a mere hollow in the sand without any lining whatever. It contained four 

 eggs which were "light brown with a slight green tinge and numerous 

 roundish blackish umber and lilac spots and dots." According to Ridgway 

 the eggs measure about 1.26 by .94 inches. 



TECHNICAL D KSCRI PTI OX. 



Adult male in summer: Forehead white, bordered beliinil by a black bar across the 

 crown; remainder of crown, occiput, and nape grayish brown; chin, throat, ring round neck, 

 and most of under parts pure wliite; a black band across the upper breast, extcndmg back- 

 ward almost around the neck, but seldom complete; back and upper surface of wmgs and 



