EILLDEEE -103 



According to this interpretation, the extraordinary wanderings 

 of this bird are determined by the factor of food supply. 



The Golden Plover feeds upon insects of various sorts such as 

 beetles, crickets, grasshoppers, cutworms, and some vegetable matter 

 (Forbush. ]!)12, p. 347). In Labrador as before stated, it feeds 

 extensively on crowberries. To the sportsman it is an ideal game 

 species, decoying rather readily, but becoming wary after its suspi- 

 cions have been aroused. Its flesh is exceedingly palatable and highly 

 prized for the table. The result is that the species has been hunted 

 persistently by both sportsman and market hunter, wherever it is 

 found, and consequently has greatly decreased in numbers during 

 recent years. Forbush (1912, pp. 344—347) estimated a 90 per cent 

 decrease on the New England coast in fifteen years. 



Unfortunately the Golden Plover is, and probably always has 

 been, a rare species in California ; and there is no reason to hope that 

 its numbers here will increase in the future. It is of immediate 

 interest here only to the scientist and nature-lover. Reports of strag- 

 gling visitors among our lesser known birds are always of value and 

 should be sent in promptly with full particulars to some scientific 

 institution. 



Killdeer 

 Oxyechus vociferus vociferus (Linnaeus) 



Other names — Killileer Plover; Killdee; AegiaUtis vocifera; Charadrius voci- 

 ferus. 



Descriptiox — Adults, both sexes, at all seasons: Top of head and upper siir 

 face (including sides of breast between two black neck bands) dull brown, 

 with more or less rusty feather-tipping; lower forehead ("brow"), and stripe 

 above and behind eye, white; stripe from side of bill along each side of head 

 to below eye, including ear region, blackish brown; upper part of forehead 

 black, forming a bar from eye to eye just above the white "brow"; bill black; 

 iris dark brown, edges of eyelids orange-red; rump and upper tail coverts light 

 rusty brown, or tawny; tail feathers white at extreme bases, the middle ones 

 shading through dull brown to black and ending in light brown; rest of tail 

 feathers beyond white bases pale rusty with black subterminal bars and conspicuous 

 tips of white on outermost feathers, and rusty on inner ones; outer surface 

 of closed wing chiefly like back; flight feathers blackish brown, marked with 

 white on inner webs and near tips; tips of greater coverts and portions of 

 secondaries white, forming a conspicuous bar on expanded wing; axillars and 

 lining of wing white, under surface of flight feathers chiefly dusky; foreneck 

 and breast crossed by two black bands, separated in front by white (which is 

 usually tinged with pale brown); the lower black band and the white area 

 between both blend on sides into the dull brown of the back; the upper and 

 broader black band completely encircles the neck; chin and throat and collar 

 around hind neck above broad black band continuously pure white; rest of 

 under surface of body white; longer under tail coverts white, spotted with light 



