202 BULLETIN 14 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Fall inigration. — Late dates of fall departure are : Alaska, mouth 

 of the Yukon River, October 12, St. Paul Island, October 25, and 

 Attn Island, October 31 ; and Siberia, Bering Island, October 28. 



Casual records. — Tliis species has been reported as a casual from 

 Algeria, Malta, Italy, Spain, Heligoland, Poland, and the British 

 Isles (B. O. U.). In North America, specimens identified as this 

 race, have been collected in British Colombia, Comox, November 2, 

 3, and 4, 1903, and Masset, August 10, 1920; Washington, Kahlotus, 

 December 19, 1924; Idaho, Lake Chatcolet, October 1, 1923; and 

 Maine, Scarborough, September 11, 1911. 



Egg Dates. — Bering Sea coast of Alaska: 15 records. May 23 to 

 July 1; 8 records, June 11 to 27. Siberia: 5 records, June 30 to 

 July 5. 



OXYECHUS VOCIFERUS (Linnaeus) 

 KILLDEER 



HABITS 



Contributed by Charles WendcU Tcivnsend 



It may be said of the killdeer that it is probably the most widely 

 distributed and best known of all our shore birds. Unlike most of 

 the group, it is not confined to the borders of lakes and of the sea 

 but is found in meadows, pastures, and dry uplands often many miles 

 from water. Unlike, also, the majority of our shore birds, its sojourn 

 here is not limited to the migration periods, for it breeds and winters 

 throughout a large portion of the United States. It is not of a 

 retiring disposition, and it often makes its presence known by loud 

 calls and cries, to which it owes both its common and scientific 

 names — killdeer and vociferus. Its strikingly marked and handsome 

 plumage makes it very conspicuous when it is in motion, as is nearly 

 always the case. In all these respects it resembles the European 

 lapwing, a resemblance to which both Wilson and Audubon called 

 attention. Wilson (1832) says that "this restless and noisy bird is 

 known to almost every inhabitant of the United States." 



During the latter part of the last century and early in this persecu- 

 tion by shooting brought down the numbers of the killdeer so that 

 in certain parts of the country where it formerly bred it became 

 extremely rare. Thus, Forbush (1925) says: 



The killdeer was once a common breeding bird in New England. Early in 

 the present century it became so reduced in numbers that it was believed to 

 have been practically exterminated as a breeding species. * * * Legisla- 

 tion protecting it perpetually has resulted in a gradual increase of the species 

 which is now nesting locally but not uncommonly in the coastal region and 

 river valleys of southern New England. 



