KTLLDEER PLOVER. 99 



If you find their feeding-grounds, and sit per- 

 fectly still in the early morning, you may have 

 the killdeer come very close to you. One could 

 watch them a long while every day, and not grow 

 tired. You will not see them in large flocks, but 

 in family groups or pairs. 



The food of this plover is small animals, such 

 as snails, and slugs, and water-bugs, and worms, 

 in fact, any little insect or other animal that 

 lives in moist ground. They have a queer way 

 of listening with their beaks when the creatures 

 they wish to eat are underground. Little nerves 

 run down into the tip of the bill, so that it is sen- 

 sitive. When a killdeer wants to find out if a 

 worm is anywhere within hearing, it rests its 

 beak lightly on the ground, as if listening. It is 

 able to follow the sound it hears, and the beak 

 goes straight to the worm or insect. 



If the bird is uncertain as to any food being in 

 the ground beneath her, she has an original way 

 of stamping her foot as hard as she can, when 

 up comes the object she is after. On this ac- 

 count, certain plovers are sometimes called 

 "stampers." Why any creature -comes up to the 

 surface of the ground when killdeer stamps its 

 foot, nobody knows. Perhaps it is from the wish 

 to be hospitable, as when a person answers a 

 knock at the door. 



