164 FIELD SHOOTING. 



It is a dodging, cunning bird, but, when it 

 first arrives in the latter part of April, it is 

 very tame and very easily shot. I never shoot it 

 at that season, and no one ought to do so; for 

 the birds are ready to pair as soon as they 

 reach their breeding-grounds on our prairies. It 

 builds in the grass of the prairie pastures, on 

 the ground, its nest being made of dead grass, and 

 commonly under a tussock. The eggs are a pale, 

 bluish green, freckled with brown, and I do not 

 think the hen usually lays more than three. I 

 have a sort of remembrance that I have seen nests 

 with four eggs in them, but I made no notes of 

 them at the time, and am not quite certain. The 

 young birds grow fast, and get fat on abun- 

 dance of grasshoppers and other insects which 

 swarm in the hot months with us. About the 

 first of September the upland plover, young and 

 old, are fine, plump birds, and are far more diffi- 

 cult to shoot than the breeding-birds w r ere when 

 they reached the Western States in the spring. 

 In the fall they are wild and wary, full of craft 

 and cunning, and hardly to be approached by a 

 man on foot, especially if he has a gun. 

 Almost the only way to get near enough to them 

 to shoot is by means of a horse and buggy. 



