AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



173 



H.<HWs 



address all communications to 



Meg Merrythought 



156 Waterville St., Waterbury, Ct. 



My Dear Young Folks: — 



On a certain farm among the high hills in Northern Connecticut, there is 

 an immense cornfield. Last May, when the farmer's plow turned up the first 

 rich brown furrow at the end of the field, a little mother at the farther side 

 anxiously watched and guarded four creamy brown-specked eggs at the base 

 of some cornstalks remaining from last year's growth. 



. .To many of you a Killdeer Plover's nest is a common sight, but the boys 

 and girls in this state count that a red-letter day when they find her nesting 

 among their hills. 



This could hardly be called a nest, for it was but a slight hollow in the 

 brown earth — but it was beautifully lined — with what? I am sure you 

 would never guess. Simply with hundreds of pumpkin seeds. Perhaps the 

 fall before, Johnny had made a jack-a-lantern, perhaps a pumpkin had 

 been left to decay in the field, at all events, Mother Killdeer found the con- 

 tents of the yellow globe, and had made a quaint lining for her nest. 



The eggs were placed on end in a compact circle, (do you know the reason 

 for that?) with the larger end upward. Both birds seemed to guard the spot, 

 and when approached, would try to lure away the intruders by the old trick 

 of a broken wing, with tail feathers opening and closing like a fan, showing 

 the pretty rufous coloring, they fluttered farther and farther from the nest, 

 ■calling plaintively, "Oh dear! Oh dear! dear! Then they would turn to- 

 wards us and show glistening in the sunlight, the snow-white breast, with 

 .the striking black bands. 



