THE SHORE BIRDS. 213 



of the ocean. When this sound, coming from the 

 throats of many plovers, is heard after dark, it is 

 particularly striking, as wild and weird as the whis- 

 tling of the wind through the rigging of a ship at 

 sea. 



This little plover nests on our sea-coast, and makes 

 most violent demonstrations and pleads piteously 

 when the eggs are approached. I found them nest- 

 ing in the meadows back of Holly Beach, on the 

 New Jersey coast, in June, 1893. 



In August many scores of these birds come up the 

 Delaware River as far as tide-water extends, feeding 

 on the gravel-bars and mud-flats at low tide, and oc- 

 casionally following up the courses of the creeks 

 until they find themselves well into the country. 



Wilson's Plover is less common, but not at all rare 

 on the Southern New Jersey coast, and, like the piping, 

 comes up our rivers, and when there is quite the 

 same in habits as the preceding. It is not unusual 

 to find on one sand-bar these two plovers, the san- 

 derling, and a few " peeps." They run in and out 

 among the little hills and hollows in the mud, each 

 uttering its own cry, and together filling the air with 

 a pleasant piping and twittering that is, as a whole, 

 musical. Flush them and they will get up as one 

 flock, but before they have gone far will separate and 

 keep apart until the cause of alarm has gone, when 

 they reassemble, and as one happy family pursue 

 their insect-hunting, each after its own fashion, but 

 all without a trace of quarrelling. The little minnows 

 that are often left in pools at low tide are eaten by 

 all these little plover. 



