GOLDEN PLOVER, CURLEW, GRAY PLOVER. 159 



Golden plover and curlew may be found almost 

 anywhere in the prairie States in April. As I 

 stated briefly in the chapters on pinnated grouse, 

 I once went on a three months' shooting-excursion 

 to Christian County, Illinois, starting about the 

 first of February. My shooting companion was 

 a hunter named Joe Phillips, and we had for 

 camp-keeper a lively, jovial fellow named Ben 

 Powell. The latter has acted as camp-keeper for 

 me many years. We pitched our tent about 

 a couple of miles from the town of Assumption, 

 and the report was soon spread in that primitive 

 Western village that we were a band of gipsies. 

 One evening a bevy of brown, blushing girls ar- 

 rived at the camp and demanded information as 

 to where the gipsy women were. They wanted 

 to have their fortunes told, and could hardly be 

 persuaded that we were simply hunters and of 

 the same race of people as themselves. After- 

 wards some of the men of the village came, and, 

 in conversation with Powell during the absence 

 of Phillips and myself, boasted of a great shot 

 they had among them. The people of the region 

 were almost all agriculturists and herdsmen, and 

 as for shooting game on the wing, they hardly 

 knew what it was. The man, who had settled 



