KILLDEER 481 
ultimately open into the ureter. These tubules begin near the 
surface of the lobule, as small invaginated capsules, each surround- 
ing a glomerulus of fine arterial blood-vessels, through the walls of 
which the urinary matter exudes from the blood into the tubule. 
The rest of the arterial blood entering the Kidneys through the 
renal arteries (which are branches from the dorsal aorta and from 
the sciatic artery) passes through a capillary network, and is thence 
conducted through the efferent renal veins into the system of the 
inferior vena cava (see VASCULAR SYSTEM). 
KILLDEER, a common and well-known American Plover, so 
called in imitation of its whistling ery, the Charadrius vociferus of 
Linneus, and the Mgialitis vocifera of modern ornitholegists. 
About the size of a Snipe, it is mostly sooty-brown above, but 
shewing a bright buff on the tail coverts, and in flight a white bar 
on the wings; beneath it is pure white except two pectoral bands 
of deep black. It is one of the finest as well as the largest of the 
group commonly known as Ringed Plovers or “Ring Dotterels,”4 
forming the genus Agialitis of Boie. Mostly wintering in the 
south or only on the sea-shore of the more northern States, in 
spring it spreads widely over the interior, breeding on the newly- 
ploughed lands or on open grass-fields. The nest is made in a 
slight hollow of the ground, and is often surrounded with small 
pebbles and fragments of shells. Here the hen lays her pear- 
shaped, stone-coloured eggs, four in number, and always arranged 
with their pointed ends touching each other, as is indeed the 
custom of most Limicoline birds. The parents exhibit the greatest 
anxiety for their offspring on the approach of an intruder: the hen 
runs off with drooping wings and plaintive cries, while the cock 
sweeps around, gesticulating with loud and angry vociferations. 
It is the best-known bird of its Family in the United States, 
throughout which it is found in all suitable districts, but less 
abundantly in the north-east than further south or west. In 
Canada it does not range further to the northward than 56° N. 
lat., and it is not known to occur in Greenland, or hardly in 
Labrador, though it is a passenger in Newfoundland every spring 
and autumn.? In winter it finds its way to Bermuda and to some 
of the Antilles, but it is not recorded from any of the islands te 
the windward of Porto Rico. However, in the other direction it 
goes very’ much further south, travelling down the Isthmus of 
Panama and the west coast of South America to Peru. 
1 The word Dorrrret is properly applicable to a single species only (see 
above, pp. 161, 162). 
2 A single example is said to have been shot near Christchurch, in Hamp- 
shire, in April 1857 (Zbis, 1862, p. 276), and a female was undoubtedly shot on 
Tresco, one of the Scilly Isles in January 1885 by Mr. F, Jenkinson (Proc. 
Zool. Soc. 1885, p. 835). 
31 
