PLOVER-SHOOTING. 209 



scattered. It is found pretty much all over the United 

 States, as far north as the plains of the Saskatchewan, 

 and as far south as Mexico, Central America, and the 

 pampas of South America. A few specimens of it have 

 been killed in England; one specimen was killed near 

 Sydney, Australia; one was taken on the Island of Malta, 

 in the Mediterranean Sea, and it sometimes visits the 

 Island of Trinidad. It has been known to breed so far 

 north as Fort Yukon, also in the mountains of Lower 

 Mackenzie, and in the Gens de Large Mountains, 200 miles 

 northeast of the Yukon. It is occasionally found in the 

 sparser districts of New England, and once bred plenti- 

 fully on Long Island and throughout Pennsylvania. It 

 fairly swarms at times on the lower table-lands of Utah 

 and Colorado, and overruns Kansas and Nebraska in large 

 flocks. It breeds very largely in Northern Illinois and 

 Southern Wisconsin to-day, and the bulk of the flight 

 does not go any farther north than that. It leaves South- 

 western Texas from the 1st to the 10th of May, and re-ap- 

 pears there in July, passing thence on south by Septem- 

 ber or October. It appears in the North with the first 

 warm weather of settled spring, about the time the young 

 grass is knee-high to it on the burned-over prairies or 

 high swales. It passes farther north than Kansas, but 

 in the latitude of Northern Illinois it lingers all through 

 the summer, and breeds on the high prairies. At the date 

 of this writing (July, 1889), I could go out any day, 

 within twenty miles of Chicago, and kill three or four 

 dozen of the upland plover, did I care to do so at such a, 

 season of the year. I should be inclined, from my own 

 experience, to name Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, and the 

 Indian Territory as the best shooting-grounds for this 

 bird. It is usually noticed more abundantly in the spring 

 than in the fall in Kansas and Nebraska, although it is 

 not then nearly so fat and tender as in the fall. There is 



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