I50 GAME BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



on our list seems to be more generally known, for it is scattered 

 apparently over the whole face of the land — from the fur countries 

 to the gulf, and from ocean to ocean. Though not numerous in 

 the older States of the East, probably from the greater scarcity 

 of its principal fare, the grasshopper, throughout the unlimited 

 tracts of prairie, plain and pasture of the Western States as far as 

 the Rocky Mountains, it is found in countless thousands, more 

 particularly during its pilgrimages to its breeding grounds in the 

 north. 



In Kansas, Nebraska, and the wide extent of plain west of the 

 Mississippi, where the grasshopper becomes a scourge to the rest- 

 less pioneer, these birds are at home. Here they can be found in 

 all their glory ; here, until the eye wearies with the monotony, their 

 well-filled battalions can be seen sweeping over the country- in 

 their journeyings, gathering in a harvest of the pests which have 

 become such a scourge to the hardy cultivators of this land of 

 promise. This locality is thus held with the same apparent te- 

 nacity by the Golden Plover as the great mast region of our heavily 

 timbered country is held by the common passenger pigeon of 

 America. 



The Golden Plover breeds to the north of the United States. 

 These birds, though naturally timid, and usually very shy of the 

 approach of man, are easily reached, provided the proper precau- 

 tions are used by the hunters, who generally resort to the more 

 convenient means of a wagon, from which they carry on a whole- 

 sale slaughter into their well-stocked ranks ; and from the appar- 

 ent inattention which is usually paid to their enemies thus equipped, 

 it would seem that their fear of humanity is limited to man in his 

 primitive condition only, for after volley upon volley has been poured 

 into their ranks with deadly effect, each shot leaving its score or 

 more dead and wounded, they pass along in unbroken line only to 

 receive another cross fire in their next circuit of flight, as they pass 

 over a favorite feeding place of newly plowed ground, or in a 

 grasshopper range. 



In the autumn, and more particularly after a protracted drouth 

 to which the vast tracts of prairie or plain of the West is subject 

 at this season ; and when the many ponds and sloughs are dry, 

 these birds, after a day spent upon the newly plowed lands, resort 



