THE PIGEONS, GROUSE, AND SHORE-BIRDS. 229 



band of birds which like the meadow-lark frequent the open 

 cultivated fields. On account of this relationship the killdeer 

 plover should be stricken from the list of ' game-birds,' and 

 encouraged to breed in greater abundance in cultivated fields 

 and meadows.*' Many years ago a writer in the Southern 

 Planter stated that the Southern fanners erroneously thought 

 that the killdeer destroyed young turnips. " I have several 

 times dissected the gizzards of killdeers," he writes, " to show 

 their destroyers that they contain no vegetable substance, and 

 nothing, indeed, but the little bug so famous for destroying 

 young turnips and tobacco plants. These little hopping 

 beetles are a great nuisance in the land, and seem to be 

 rapidly increasing. The killdeers are their natural enemies, 

 and formerly collected in large numbers to fulfil the purposes 

 of their mission." ' 



The GOLDEN PLOVER breeds in the Arctic regions, but in the 

 migration season it is very abundant and is highly esteemed 

 as a game-bird. It feeds on grasshoppers and other insects, 

 worms, and berries. 



THE SNIPES. 



In the snipe family are many birds highly valued as game- 

 birds, and some that are useful as insect destroyers. At the 

 head of the list stands the AMERICAN WOODCOCK, a familiar 

 game-bird in the Eastern States and occurring as far west as 

 Nebraska. Few birds have so many good points as this : it is 

 pre-eminently a game-bird in every sense of the term, de- 

 manding all the skill of the hunter and being unexcelled in 

 the quality of its flesh. 



It is one of the earliest arrivals in spring and the return 

 flight is not completed until late in autumn. In spring and 

 early summer it lives in swampy places, probing the black 

 mud with its long bill for worms. In August it flies out to 



1 Quoted by Wilson Flagg, Agr. of Mass., 1861, pt. II. p. 55. 



