The Belted Piping Plover (Aegiaiitismeioda) 



By W. Leon Dawson 



Description: Similar to l^iping Plover, Init black band complete on breast 

 and cervix. 



Length : 6j.'2 to 7y2 inches. 



Range: "Mississippi Valley, breeding from northern Illinois, north to Lake 

 Winnipeg; more or less frequent eastward to the Atlantic Coast." 



A fortunate discovery made late in the season of 1903 enables us to add this 

 interesting bird to the Ohio state list. On the 26th of June, while Professor 

 James H. Hine was doing the honors of the biological laboratory at Cedar Point, 

 our party of three came upon a strange Plover, as he danced before the lapping 

 waves on the neighboring shore. A hundred yards or so below we saw another, 

 evidently of the same species, entertaining his mate with a flight song. He would 

 circle round and round with quivering wings, describing curves a hundred feet or 

 so in diameter, and whistling the while a prolonged soft note with a rising inflec- 

 tion. Professor Jones was detailed on the case and soon came back reporting a 

 nest of four eggs, — that shown in the accompanying illustration. He had con- 

 cealed himself quietly in a clump of willows, and marked the female as she stole 

 to her nest. The bird had settled once in the middle of the pathless sand, but 

 upon some sudden misgiving had scampered away again without the astute ob- 

 server's suspecting that she had visited her eggs. Upon her return, however, to 

 the same spot, the truth became evident. 



It is not fair to say that the nesting site was unmarked, for what is easier to 

 see than a piece of waif coal, after one's attention has been called to it? And 

 as for the nest itself, what could be more charming than a mosaic of flattened 

 pebbles and bits of broken shell, to say nothing of such neighbors as a fish-bone 

 and a joint and a half of straw ? 



While we were examining the nest, the birds kept circling about uneasily at 

 a safe distance, uttering low cries in questioning or querulous tones — quccp, in a 

 variety of inflections, and a longer queeplo or queeplew. They had the habit also 

 of scampering rapidly for a little ways and then pulling up short with a compen- 

 sating bob and perk like the Killdeer. WHien squatted upon the ground with the 

 lower whites obscured, the color of the Plover's back so perfectly matched that 

 of the glowing sand as to render the bird almost invisible. 



All the birds seen on this occasion, to the number of four or five, were of the 

 belted variety, and the identification was confirmed through specimens secured by 

 Professor Hine on the following day. He also took another set of four eggs 

 about two weeks later from a nest in a similar situation, but some four hundred 

 yards north of the first discovered site. From the advanced stage of incubation 

 he was sure that the eggs belonged to a different pair of birds. 



The question of the validity of the two forms of Piping Plovers is still open 

 for discussion. The finding of this nest makes it certain that the breeding ranges 

 of the alleged subspecies overlap considerably. 



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