AMEEICAN GOLDEN PLOVEE. 5 



favourite nesting site is on the high banks of the gullies or small streams. No 

 nests were ever found in the grass or in swampy ground. 



" The sitting birds show great solicitude when disturbed, feigning lameness, 

 and trying to attract one away from the nest. They are shrewd enough always 

 to keep quite a distance from the nest, as long as the collector is anywhere in the 

 vicinity of it, and it is simply time wasted to attempt to find the nest by looking 

 for it, as I know by hard experience. The only way to make sure of the eggs is 

 to withdraw some distance, and sit down patiently and wait for the bird to go 

 back to her eggs, watching her if necessary with a field-glass. Having marked 

 her on to the nest, one must walk towards it in a straight line, looking neither to 

 the right nor the left and keeping his eyes fixed upon the spot she rises from. 

 He is then pretty sure of the eggs. However, the surface of the tundra is so 

 uniform that a careless glance to one side or the other after the bird is flushed 

 may throw the collector wholly off" the track, and then he has to go back and wait 

 for the bird to return again. 



" Both males and females take a share in the incubation. In 1882 the 

 sitting bird was frequently secured with the eggs, and in every case turned out to 

 be a male; but in 1883 a number of sitting females were taken, and finally, in 

 one or two cases, both parents were taken with the eggs, and both males and 

 females had their breasts bare, as if incubating. 



" The nesting season continues till the first or middle of July, about which 

 time the adults begin to collect in flocks, feeding together around the ponds on 

 the higher tundra, associated sometimes with a few Knots or a straggling Curlew. 



"The old birds leave for the south about the end of July, and no more 

 Plovers are to be seen till about the middle of August, when the young, who 

 heretofore have been keeping out of sight, scattered over the tundra, gather into 

 flocks, and for several days are quite plenty on the dryer hills and banks, after 

 which they depart. Stragglers may be seen up to the end of August." 



d2 



