THE SEAIIPALMATED PLOVER. 



489 



This Plover is found singly or in little companies, more frequently in 

 late summer or fall, and it mingles freely with other migrating waders. I 

 shall not soon forget a sight which once met my eyes on one of the Lake 

 Erie Islands in early August. A lagoon, filled with water only when the 

 ,*>-, strongly, presented inviting 



warm mud, bordered by the dens- 

 bind-weed and rank grasses. With 

 great labor Air. Jones and I made 

 our way, unobserved, to the edge 



East wind blew 



stretches 



est cover of 



of the tangle, and parting the grass blades, looked out upon eight kinds 

 of Limicoke within a stone's throw of us. There were Semipalmated Plov- 

 ers, Killdeers. Yellow-legs, with Solitary. Pectoral, Least, and Semipal- 

 mated Sandpipers, and a chance Spotted which held itself aloof from 

 the foreigners. There they pattered and scampered, or stalked, according 

 to their kind. They dozed, or prodded, or teetered and bowed, or put up 

 a slender, tentative wing to try the motion of the air. as fancy led them, 

 until our brains were fairly awhirl with the delicious confusion of this 

 rare ornithological sight. 



