166 BULLETIN 146^ UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



wary than old blackbreasts and a few can sometimes be obtained by 

 crawling up back of a sand dime and shooting them as they jump. 

 This involves plenty of exercise, requires perseverance, and calls for 

 quick work with the gun, and the bird generally escapes. Walter H. 

 Rich (1907) has described this very well, as follows: 



Yet let tlie gunner peep ever so carefully over the edge of tlie bank v^^here he 

 lies hidden and each wary feeder becomes at once a motionless statue. Had he 

 not seen their animation a moment before he might think he had come upon a 

 VFOoden congregation of decoys. While he is still they make no movement, but 

 let him stir, either for nearer approach or to dravp back from view that he may 

 get a better position, and the instant his head goes out of sight behind the long 

 salt grass the flock noiselessly takes wing with easy, graceful flight, alighting 

 some hundreds of yards away to feed comfortably until the dangerous admirer, 

 with stealthy caution and much toilsome trudging through the shifting sand 

 dunes, once more approaches too near for safety, when the same performance 

 again takes place. It makes little difference how the approach is managed, the 

 result is generally the same; the gunner peers cautiously at the spot where a 

 moment since the flock was busily feeding, and seeing them not soon discovers 

 them 200 yards away, apparently just as ready to tease him as before. 



Winter. — These plover, no longer black bellied now, spend the 

 winter in the southern United States and from there southward to 

 central Brazil and Peru. They winter commonly as far north as 

 South Carolina and the southern half of California, less commonly 

 in North Carolina, and casually farther north. I have seen them in 

 immense flocks on the great mud flats among the Florida keys and 

 we had them with us all winter on the beaches and sandy islands 

 about Tampa Bay. They showed their sagacity by their confiding 

 tameness on the protected bathing beaches and by their extreme wild- 

 ness on the outer islands, where it was almost impossible to approach 

 them within gunshot range. 



The gray plover of the Eastern Hemisphere goes as far south in 

 winter as southern Africa, Madagascar, and Australia. Charles 

 Barrett, referring to Australia, says in his notes : 



This species sometimes associates in large flocks, but more often is seen 

 singly, or in pairs, feeding on mud flats and along the sea beaches. It is a wary 

 bird. Arriving in spring (September) or early summer in the southern portions 

 of the continent it becomes widely distributed, but seems to restrict itself mainly 

 to the seashore. However, it does wander inland at times, having been recorded, 

 for example, from the midlands of Tasmania. It leaves Australia apparently in 

 March or April (autumn) on the northern flight to its breeding haunts. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — Cosmopolitan. 



Breeding range. — The breeding range of the black-bellied plover 

 in North America is confined to the Arctic coast north to Alaska 

 (Wainwright, Point Barrow, Colville River delta, Barter Island, 



