260 BULLETIN 146^ UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



picture of parental distress it was she. Finally, as though exhausted, she sank 

 to the sand and lay on her side gasping. The other two flew back and forth 

 overhead, whistling plaintively, but she heeded them not, nor my approach, and 

 lay there panting. I was sure now that she was tired by her exertion and 

 hurried to catch her, only to learn that she was "playing possum." She 

 allowed me to almost touch her, and fluttered off again. Evidently she was not 

 satisfied that her nest was safe and she tried new tactics this time. With 

 seemingly broken wings that trailed as though helpless at her sides, she started 

 down the beach and once more I followed after, but this time increased my 

 speed. As I had about caught up with her she gave a joyous whistle, sprang 

 into the air, and those wounded wings carried her like a bullet around a point 

 of wooded land and out of sight. She had accouiplished her purpose, as I had 

 hopelessly lost the place from which she started. Search as I might, and did, 

 I could not find it. 



Plumages. — The upper parts of the downy young Wilson plover 

 are of about the same color pattern as the egg to make it equally 

 invisible on the sand. The crown, back, rump, wings, and thighs are 

 "cream buff," mottled with black; the forehead, sides of the head, 

 and under parts are white; there is a broad white collar around the 

 neck, and the outer joint of the wing is white. 



The Juvenal plumage, in what specimens I have seen, July 20 to 

 27, is much like that of the adult female in winter, but the colors are 

 duller and the breast band is incomplete or only suggested. Perhaps 

 earlier in the season these birds might have shown buffy edgings 

 which had since worn away. Probably a postjuvenal molt takes 

 place, but I have not been able to trace it. In the first winter plum- 

 age the sexes are alike; but at the first prenuptial molt, in February 

 and March, the male assumes, partially at least, the black markings 

 on the head and breast. At the next complete molt, the first post- 

 nuptial, the adult winter plumage is acquired. 



Adults have an incomplete prenuptial molt, from January to 

 March, involving the body plumage, and a complete postnuptial molt, 

 from July to October. The sexes are quite unlike in nuptial plum- 

 age, the black markings on the head and breast of the male being 

 replaced by " wood brown " in the female. In winter they are much 

 alike, but I believe that in fully adult males there is always more or 

 less black in the breast band. 



Food. — Audubon (1840) says of these birds : 



They feed fully as much by night as by day, and the large eyes of this, as of 

 other species of the genus, seem to fit them for nocturnal searchings. Their 

 food consists principally of small marine insects, minute shellfish, and sand 

 worms, with which they mix particles of sand. 



The stomachs of five birds taken on the coast of Alabama by 

 Arthur H. Howell (1924) contained " crabs and shrimps, with a few 

 mollusks and flies." One taken in Porto Rico by Stuart T. Danforth 

 (1926) contained Dytiscid larvae and adults. 



