PLOVER SHOOTING 



dash in over the " stools " for a moment and 

 then wheel away. And these may circle after 

 a shot and return to give the sportsman an- 

 other shot. These sand-pipers, called also 

 grass plover, are colored something like a 

 jack-snipe, although lighter in hue, but have 

 no cross bars on the tail like the jack-snipe, 

 and their bills are short. They live like the 

 jack-snipe, chiefly by suction, drawing up ani- 

 malculae from the wet ground through their 

 bills, by means of their sensitive tongues; and 

 they grow to be very fat. I have seen them 

 break open and split when falling from a 

 height of sixty or seventy yards, on account 

 of the accumulation of fat about the breasts 

 and shoulders. They are delicious eating, 

 but are not nearly so handsome a bird as the 

 golden plover. Like the golden plover, they 

 are swift of wing and irregular of flight. 



When the " stools " are set out near a 

 pond or marsh the hunter is likely, if well 

 concealed, to get a shot at the greater or 

 lesser yellow-legged plover. The larger of 

 these is a bird almost as big as a good-sized 

 spring chicken. They come in flocks of from 

 four to a dozen or more, and their peculiarly 



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