472 



Bird- Lore 



in the beach a few j'ardt; above high- water 

 mark, and lay three, rarely four, beautiful 

 greenish-gray eggs, spotted, blotched, and 

 lined with blackish brown and light laven- 

 der. Early in June of this year I was camp- 

 ing on a small sandy key, about a hundred 

 yards wide, between the Gulf of Mexico 

 and a bay. The plovers were nesting on a 

 bank of white sand that had been thrown 

 up by steam dredges a few years before on 

 the bay side, jjrobably half a mile long, and 

 barely a foot above the high-water line. 

 I estimated that at least fifty pairs nested 

 there. 



In walking along the beach, I found 

 about thirty nests in two days, photo- 

 graphed several of them, and took one set 

 of eggs under the scientific permit issued 

 by the state. The next morning I found 

 that one egg had hatched out and another 

 pipped. I immediately took the young 

 bird, the two remaining eggs, and my 

 camera, and rowed back to the sand-spit, 

 to try to locate the depression in the sand 

 from which I had taken them; but after 

 an hour's work I had to gi\-e it up — all 

 places looked alike. I noted, however, one 

 nest, placed in the broken end of a plank, 

 that on the previous day had had two eggs 

 and now had three, so that I knew it was 

 a fresh set. I took these eggs and placed 

 the young bird and my two eggs in their 

 place, and them moved off and sat down 

 to watch developments. In a few minutes 

 the mother-bird ran up to the nest, looked 

 hard at the young bird, which had run off 

 about two feet from the eggs, circled the 

 nest several times, and then squatted down 

 on the two eggs and begun calling softly to 

 the young bird. In a few minutes he crept 

 up to the old bird. She looked him over for 

 fully two minutes, 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. I sat there for 

 a full hqur, and went back to camp a very 

 surprised and happy fellow. This appeared 

 to me to be a \ery unusual proceeding, but 

 if ^ she was satisfied, certainly I was. 



Two days later, on my way back, I 

 ran the boat close to the beach opposite 

 this nest. They old bird ran off, and up 



jumped three young and took off up the 

 beach after her. The explanation of fresh 

 eggs so late in the season is the fact that 

 many eggs are washed away by high tides. 

 I once found twenty eggs along the beach 

 at the edge of the drift that had been 

 washed away. This plover is an adept at 

 tolling one from its eggs, playing the 

 broken-wing act to a finish. But really 

 get near the nest, and the bird's actions are 

 very different; then it will run under your 

 feet and beg so pitifully that it is hard to 

 touch the eggs. 



Gray Kingbird 



This tyrant flycatcher appears in 

 southern Florida about the first week in 

 April, but to find it one must go through 

 the mangrove thickets that border the 

 salt-water bays and inlets. Here, perched 

 on some dead snag, the Gray Kingbird 

 salutes one with his harsh note, closely 

 resembling the note of the northern King- 

 bird. I usually hunt this bird from a canoe, 

 as the nests are invariably in the man- 

 groves that overhang the water. Paddling 

 along the edge of these bushes, one will 

 presently see an old bird perched on some 

 dead snag, or on the topmost branch of 

 some mangrove-bush, calling in his highest 

 note. He will stay there and direct you to 

 his nest, as he never perches very far from 

 it. This is placed from four to fifteen feet 

 above the water. The nest is woven of fine 

 rootlets, and is lined with finer fibrous roots, 

 and sometimes with horse-hair. It is frail, 

 so that usually one can see the outlines of 

 the eggs from beneath; yet it is stronger 

 than it looks at a distance . The eggs have a 

 deep creamy ground-color, beautifully spot- 

 ted and wreathed with several shades of 

 brown and lilac, and when fresh have a pink- 

 ish cast similar to a fresh Flicker's egg. 



When camped on the key mentioned in 

 the Wilson's Plover article, I spent a part 

 of each day paddling along the mangroves 

 on the bay side, and within a distance of 

 four miles located twelve nests of the Gray 

 Kingbird. These contained everything in 

 the way of eggs and birds, from fresh eggs 

 to fledglings nearly ready to fly. This was 



