242 BULLETIN 146, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



youngsters were running around in our barrel. They were now so active, that 

 if one were liberated it would be rather difficult to catch it, while if hidden, 

 it would be almost impossible to tiud it. 



We kept them there two days, until we made'sure that the parents never fed 

 them. They brooded them quite constantly, but brought no food whatever, and 

 we made certain that the young were able and willing to find their own food 

 within 24 hours after they were out of the shell. It was seen that unless 

 they were liberated from the barrel they would soon starve to death. 



C. A. Eobbins (1919) in a study of a colony of piping plovers 

 breeding in Massachusetts lays stress on the communal feeling that 

 he noted in the birds. He says that the feeling — 



manifests itself in a marked degree ; as when, at a threat of danger, more than 

 two adults join in driving a single brood up the beach and into the safety which 

 the concealing color of the dry sand furnishes. 



It is shown again by the number of old birds that attempt to distract atten- 

 tion from the same brood or even from a detached individual by feigning; 

 creeping off with wings outstretched and fluttering, tail fanned and dragging 

 or, if the need requires more extreme measures, collapsing utterly a short 

 distance away as if completely exhausted. 



Voice. — The piping plover's home is blue and gray and white ; 

 on one side is the long line of the horizon over a large lake or the 

 sea, on the other the long line of the sand hills. It is a land the 

 same the world over, wherever the sea meets the white, shifting 

 sand. The sea slides back and forth over the hard smooth wet shin- 

 ing beach ; above the reach of the tide is the dry, pale gray, pebbly 

 upper beach with here and there a few strands of beach grass grow- 

 ing in it, and higher up are the dunes which mark on the land side 

 the boundary of the plover's home. 



Walk along the water's edge and, although the sea may be pound- 

 ing on the shore and a northerly gale howling about our ears, we shall 

 hear the plover's voice; a soft musical moan, we can not tell from 

 where, but clear and distinct above the sound of waves and wind. 

 The note has a ventriloquial quality and it is often our first intimation 

 that a piping plover is near, for the soft gray of the bird's plumage 

 matches the sandy background, whereas the note is pervasive and 

 attracts our attention by its strangeness. 



Aretas A. Saunders sends me the following summary of this 

 plover's notes. He says : 



The commonest call I have noted is the one rendered in the books as peep-To. 

 It is lower pitched than most of the shore-bird voices, a clear melodious whistle, 

 and generally rendered peep peep peepJo. The peep is usually a tone or a tone 

 and a half higher pitched than the lo and I have one record where it is three 

 tones and a half higher. I have one or two records where the second note slurs 

 upward, the effect like peep-loay and suggesting the peeawee of the wood pewee. 

 Another sort of note I have several records of I do not find described in books. 

 This is a series of short sweet notes, more rapid than the others, nine or ten 

 notes in a series. They are either all on the same pitch, or grading slightly 



