The Upland Plover (Bartramia longlcauda) 

 By Lynds Jones 



Length, 12 inches. The only plainly colored shorebird which occurs east 

 of the plains and inhabits exclusively dry fields and hillsides. 



Range : Breeds from Oregon, Utah, Oklahoma, Indiana, and Virginia, north 

 to Alaska; winters in South America. 



Habits and economic status : This, the most terrestrial of our waders, is shy 

 and wary, but it has the one weakness of not fearing men on horseback or in a 

 vehicle. One of these methods of approach, therefore, is nearly always used by 

 the sportsman, and, since the bird is highly prized as a table delicacy, it has been 

 hunted to the verge of extermination. As the upland plover is strictly beneficial, 

 it should no longer be classed as a game bird and allowed to be shot. Ninety- 

 seven per cent of the food of this species consists of animal forms, chiefly of 

 injurious and neutral species. The vegetable food is mainly weed seeds. Almost 

 half of the total subsistence is made up of grasshoppers, crickets, and weevils. 

 Among the weevils eaten are the cotton-boll weevil, greater and lesser clover- 

 leaf weevils, cowpea weevils, and billbugs. This bird devours also leaf beetles, 

 wireworms, white grubs, army worms, cotton worms, cotton cutworms, sawfly 

 larvae, horseflies, and cattle ticks. In brief, it injures no crop, but consumes a 

 host of the worst enemies of agriculture. 



Each bird has its own place in the mind of the bird student or bird lover. 

 This place may be made by the first sight of the bird, by some constant charac- 

 teristic of carriage, voice, or environment, or by a deep impression made possible 

 by one's own mental attitude at the time. To me Bartramia is the most ethereal, 

 the most spirit-like of all birds, not excepting the owls and Whippoorwill. Our 

 first intimation of his presence in spring is either the long-drawn whistle or the 

 rolling call, from whence you know not. The first impulse is to glance quickly 

 upward into the clear blue. Next you scan the horizon, the fields, the fences, all 

 to no purpose. The cry seems to be all-pervading — coming from everywhere. 

 I never hear it but I involuntarily stop with a feeling akin to uncanniness. Where 

 is the bird ! Another call gives the direction, and you stand staring into the 

 southern sky until in the distance, far up, a quivering speck appears, approaches, 

 passes onward, anon scattering broadcast the rolling whistle, without an added 

 tremor of the wings. The bird seems a monster — at least the size of a large 

 hawk — but the long, slender neck, small head, and almost no tail, are unmistakable. 

 I have often wondered if the birds ever use their wings as other birds do. I have 

 never seen more than the slight quivering, or the motionless soaring. The slight 

 movement of the long wings certainly adds to the ethereal appearance of the 

 bird, which seems to float free in the air, usually with a slow forward motion. 



The rolling cry is not unlike the rolling call of a tree-toad, but of a different 

 quality and calibre, which makes it unmistakable. The whistle is partly double, 

 the first part passing upward nearly half an octave, terminating abruptly there, 



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