WILSON PLOVER 259 



then decided to adopt him, raked him under her out of the sun, and settled 

 down as contentedly as if the family were really her own. Two days later I 

 ran the boat close to the beach opi)osite this nest. The old bird ran off, and up 

 jumped three young and took off up the beach after her. 



Donald J. Nicholson tells me that he once found a nest " about 

 three-quarters of the way up the side of a sand dune under the 

 shelter of a small bunch of grass." He has also found this plover 

 breeding on Merritts Island, Fla., " on the exposed sandy patches 

 along the Indian River and around the water holes throughout the 

 island " ; here some of the nests were sheltered among open growths 

 of pickerelweed or Salicornia, 



Dr. Frank M. Chapman (1891) foimd this bird breeding commonly 

 near Corpus Christi, Tex., and says: "A nest found April 25 was 

 placed in some short grass about 50 feet from the water. It was 

 composed of a few straAvs placed at the bottom of a slight depression 

 in the sand, and contained three fresh eggs." 



Eggs. — The Wilson plover ordinarily lays three eggs, often only 

 two, and very rarely four ; I have a set of four eggs in my collection, 

 taken by Dr. Eugene E. Murphey on. the coast of South Carolina. 

 N. B. Moore says in his notes that a day often intervened between the 

 laying of eggs, once an interval of two days occurred and in one 

 nest the third egg was laid on the ninth day after the first. The eggs 

 are ovate to short ovate in shape and they have no gloss. The 

 ground colors vary from " cream buff " to " cartridge buff." They 

 are usually thickly and quite evenly covered with small spots, small 

 irregular blotches and scrawds of black, with a few similar, under- 

 lying markings of pale shades of " Quaker drab." The measure- 

 ments of 66 eggs average 35.7 by 26.2 millimeters ; the eggs showing 

 the four extremes measure 38.5 by 26, 37 by 27, 31.5 by 26, and 34 by 25 

 millimeters. 



Young. — N. B. Moore observed that the period of incubation is 24 

 or 25 days. I have no data showing that the male shares in the duty 

 of incubation, but he certainly shows considerable interest in the care 

 of the young. The young are able to leave the nesting hollow soon 

 after they are hatched and they are strong and swift runners, as 

 well as adepts in the art of hiding. The female is a past master in the 

 art of decoying an intruder away from her young. Mr. Thurston 

 (1913) has described this strategy very well, as follows: 



As I approached this strip, seemingly from nowhere there appeared a female 

 plover, calling plaintively. Now I knew that the season of nesting had begun. 

 She was soon joined by a male and another female that chorused with her their 

 wishes for my departure. How she coaxed me to follow her ! This I did for 

 a time, trailing behind as she struggled along on one leg, the other crumpled 

 under her. Tediously she kept ahead, calling — sobbing, I should have said — one 

 of the most patiietic yet beautiful notes I have heard. Surely if ever there was a 



