PLOVER SHOOTING 



to take along. He is companionable, and he 

 can find a dead bird in one-tenth of the time 

 that a man can ; and will also find birds which 

 a man would otherwise lose. A gun of almost 

 any ordinary good make will answer very well 

 for this class of shooting. It should be a 

 twelve or sixteen gauge, with the right-hand 

 barrel cylinder bored and the left-hand barrel 

 modified choke. A six-and-a-half or seven- 

 pound gun is amply heavy. Number eight 

 shot are the best size, and smokeless powder 

 is always an advantage. The smokeless pow- 

 der acts more quickly, requires less holding 

 ahead of the bird, and leaves the air unclouded 

 for the hunter to use his second barrel. 



In tramping for plover the sportsman will 

 usually find many grass plover, or sand-snipe, 

 some of the spotted sand-pipers, a " tip-up " 

 or tilting sand-piper occasionally, kildees on 

 the drier spots. In the pastures and meadows 

 he may run across a pair of true Bartramian 

 sand-pipers, called also upland, pasture, field, 

 grass, and prairie plover. Their tremulous, 

 fluttering flight as they rise from the ground 

 is peculiarly their own, and their rippling 

 whistle when they are high in the air is one 

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