BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER. 69 



Hudson Bay. How far this bird extends its migrations to the 

 southward is not satisfactorily ascertained, though there is little 

 doubt but that it ranges to the confines of Mexico, and it has 

 been seen in considerable numbers in Louisiana and the Car- 

 olinas during the winter. According to Wilson it generally 

 arrives in the inland parts of Pennsylvania in the latter part of 

 April ; and less timid than the Golden Plover, it often selects 

 the ploughed field for the site of its nest, where the ordinary 

 fare of earth-worms, larvae, beetles, and winged insects now 

 abounds. The nest, as in most of the birds of this class, is 

 very slightly and quickly made of a few blades of stubble or 

 withered grass, in which are generally deposited four eggs, 

 large for the size of the bird (being scarcely a line short of two 

 inches in length) , of a cream color slightly inclining to olive, 

 and speckled nearly all over with small spots and blotches of 

 lightish brown, and others of a subdued tint, bordering on 

 lavender purple ; the specks, as usual, more numerous towards 

 the large end. In the more temperate parts of the United 

 States it rears often two broods in the season, though only one 

 in Massachusetts, where, indeed, the nests are of rare occur- 

 rence. During the summer the young and old now feed 

 much upon various kinds of berries, particularly those of the 

 early bramble, called dew-berries ; and their flesh at this time 

 is highly esteemed. About the last week in August the Betel- 

 headed Plovers (as they are called in New England) descend 

 with their young to the borders of the sea-coast, where they 

 assemble in great numbers from all their Northern breeding- 

 places. Now passing an unsettled and roving life, without 

 any motive to local attachment, they crowd to such places as 

 promise them the easiest and surest means of subsistence ; 

 at this time small shell-fish, shrimps, and other minute marine 

 animals, as well as the grasshoppers, which abound in the 

 fields, constitute their principal fare. 



The Black-bellied Plover is at all times extremely shy and 

 watchful, uttering a loud, rather plaintive whistling note as it 

 flies high and circling in the air, and is so often noisy, partic- 

 ularly in the breeding-season, as to have acquired among many 



