222 BULLETIN 146, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



shot on beaches I have found worms, small mollusks {Litorina, My- 

 felis), various crustaceans {Orchestla, GmiiTnarus^ Limnoria), and 

 insects. 



W. L. McAtee (1911) says that this bird eats the larvae of the 

 salt marsh mosquito {^des soUicitans). Samuel Aughey (1878) 

 investigated the relation of birds to insects in Nebraska during the 

 great invasion of Rocky Mountain migratory locusts on the western 

 prairies and plains of the United States from 1873 to 1876. Of 11 

 stomachs of this species examined, he found the average rumber of 

 locusts in each was 38; of other insects, 19. Jimius Henderson 

 (1927) states that this plover "on coast, feeds largely on crustaceans, 

 mollusks, eggs of marine animals, and insects; interior, feeds on 

 locusts and other Orthoptera, and many other insects." Audubon 

 (1840) says: "At this period (September) they are now and then 

 observed on plowed lands, where they appear to procure different 

 species of seeds and insects." 



Behavior. — The behavior of this bird during courtship and in the 

 care of the eggs and young has already been described. On beaches 

 and mud flats it is sometimes difficult to see, notwithstanding its 

 strikingly marked plumage. As the piping plover matches the dry 

 sand, so the semipalmated plover matches the wet sand, its favorite 

 feeding grounds. Here one ma}^ walk almost onto them without 

 seeing them if they stand motionless, as they often do. While sleep- 

 ing on the dry sand, even with the black and white markings in plain 

 sight, they are also difficult to see. W. V. Praeger (1891) writes as 

 follows of a wounded bird he observed hiding in a hollow in the 

 sand: 



While admiring the perfect blending of its brown shades with the surround- 

 ings I saw in its white rings one of the commonest objects of the seashore^ — 

 the empty half of a bivalve shell. The white about the base of the bill was the 

 "hinge," the collar the outer rim, and the top of the head the cavity of the 

 shell filled — as they usually are — with sand. 



Gerald H. Thayer (1909), writing of the very similar ringed plover 

 of Europe, speaks of the "eye-masking and ' obliterative ' shadow- 

 and-hole-picturing pattern." 



Although this bird migrates and feeds both by day and night, it 

 often happens that a flock is discovered at sunset out of reach of the 

 tide, clustered together as if they had settled down for the night. 

 That they spend the night there in some cases at least is shown by 

 William Brewster (1925), who says: "I have repeatedly observed 

 them standing motionless, singly or in clustering groups, on some 

 mud bar to which they had thus returned, keeping them in view until 

 it was too dark to see them longer and finding them all there the 

 next morning." 



