OF A RANCHMAN 1 1 1 



A more curious bird than any of these is 

 the plains plover, which avoids the water 

 and seems to prefer the barren plateaus and 

 almost desert-like reaches of sage-brush and 

 alkali. Plains plovers are pretty birds, and 

 not at all shy. In fall they are fat and good 

 eating, but they are not plentiful enough to 

 be worth goin^ after. Sometimes they are 

 to be seen in the most seemingly unlikely 

 places for a wader to be. Last spring one 

 pair nested in a broken piece of Bad Lands 

 near my ranch, where the ground is riven 

 and twisted into abrupt, steep crests and 

 deep canyons. The soil is seemingly wholly 

 unfitted to support bird life, as it is almost 

 bare of vegetation, being covered with fossil 

 plants, shells, fishes, etc. all of which ob- 

 jects, by the way, the frontiersman, who is 

 much given to broad generalization, groups 

 together under the startling title of " stone 

 clams." 



