PLOVER. 



THE family of plovers Charadriidce, includes perhaps six 

 species familiar to our eastern and central sportsman, and 

 two peculiarly western varieties. We shall take them in their orni- 

 thological arrangement. The first we meet is : 



Squatarola /ze/veiica. —Brehm. Black-bellied Plover. Bullhead. Ox-eye. 

 Bottlehead. 



This species is not uncommon on our coast and on the plains 

 of the Western States and indeed is found all over the world. A 

 cursory description is as follows : Face and under parts black, upper 

 portions variegated with black, white and ashy, tail barred with 

 black and white. Young, below white shaded with grey, throat 

 and breast spotted with dusky, above blackish, speckled with white 

 and yellowish, the rump white with dark bars, legs dull blue. 

 Owing to the great difference in plumage at different seasons, 

 many confound the above with the familiar Golden Plover, the two 

 being often found in the same localities. They are however, to all 

 familiar with both, quite distinct and not liable to be confused. 



Charadrhis fulvus, var. virginicus. — Coues. Golden Plover. Whistling 

 Plover. Frost bird. Bull head. 



North America, migratory, abundant in the United States, is a 

 smaller bird than the last but is equally prized for the table. It is 

 found in Illinois in immense flocks in the fall of the year, where it 

 feeds on the prairie and sandbars in the rivers. This is a fine game 

 bird, confined neither to the interior nor to the coast alone. Colors 

 about as follows : Plumage speckled above ; in nesting season 

 black below as in the last, many of the spots bright yellow, hence 

 the name Golden ; rump and upper tail coverts like the back, fore- 

 head and line over the eye white, tail greyish brown with imperfect 

 white or ashy bars, in the fall only similar to helvetica. No bird 



