yo FRANK FORESTER'S FIELD SPORTS 



quenting, they see a person at a greater distance than when they 

 are searching for food among the slender grasses of the plains. 

 I have also thought that the size of the flocks may depend upon 

 similar contingencies ; for this bird is by no means fond of the 

 society of man. 



" Like the Spotted Sandpiper — Totanus Macularius — they not 

 unfrequently alight on fences, trees and out-houses ; but, whe- 

 ther in such situations or on the ground, they seldom settle 

 without raising both wings upright to their full extent, and ut- 

 tering their loud, prolonged and pleasing notes They run with 

 great activity, stop suddenly, and vibrate their body once or 

 twice. 



" When earnestly followed by the sportsman, they lower their 

 heads in the manner of Wilson's Plover, and the species called 

 the Piping, and run off" rapidly, or squat, according to the urg- 

 ency of the occasion. At other times, they partially extend 

 their wings, run a few steps as if about to fly, and then cun- 

 ningly move off" sideways, and conceal themselves among the 

 grass, or behind a clod. You are unfrequently rendered aware 

 of your being near them by unexpectedly hearing their plain- 

 tive and mellow notes, a circumstance, however, which I 

 always concluded to be indicative of the wariness of their dis- 

 position ; for, although you have just heard those well-known 

 cries, yet, on searching for the bird itself, you nowhere see it — 

 for the cunning creature has slipped away and hid itself. 

 When wounded in the wing, they run to a great distance, and 

 are rarely found. ' 



" Like all experienced travellers, they appear to accommo- 

 date themselves to circumstances, as regards their food — for in 

 Louisiana they feed on cantharides and other coleopterous insects ; 

 in Massachusetts on grasshoppers, on which my friend Nut- 

 tall says they soon grow fat ; in the Carolinas on crickets 

 and other insects, as well as the seeds of the crab-grass — Dicji- 

 taria Sanguinaria — and in the Barrens of Kentucky they often 

 pick the strawberries. Those which feed much on cantharides 

 require to be very carefully cleaned, otherwise persons eating 



