GAME, AQUATIC, AND RAPACIOUS BIRDS. 



15 



and is most abundant in the interior. This so-called plover breeds 

 from Oregon, Oklahoma, and Virginia north to Alaska, Mackenzie, 

 and Maine, and migrates over the more southern parts of the con- 

 tinent, passing to the pampas of Argentina to spend the winters. 



From its habits the upland plover would naturally be expected 

 to have a closer relation to agriculture than most sandpipers, and 

 such proves to be the case. Almost half its food is made up of 



grasshoppers, crick- 



ets, and weevils, all 

 of which exact 

 heavy toll from 

 cultivated crops. 

 Among the weevils 

 eaten are the cot- 

 tonboll weevil; 

 greater and lesser 

 clover-leaf weevils; 

 clover-root weevil; 

 Epicserus imbrica- 

 tus, which is known 

 to attack almost all 

 garden and orchard 

 crops; cowpea cur- 

 culios ; Tanymecus 

 confertus, an enemy 

 of sugar beets; The- 

 cesternus Jiumeralis, 

 which has been 

 known t o injure 

 grapevines; and 

 bill bugs. Tlieces- 

 ternus alone com- 

 poses 3.65 per cent 

 of the seasonal food 

 of the 163 stom- 

 achs examined, and 

 bill bugs constitute 

 5.83 per cent. No fewer than 8 species of bill bugs were identified 

 from the stomachs. These weevils injure, often seriously, such crops 

 as corn, wheat, barley, and rye, as well as forage plants of many 

 kinds. 



The upland plover further makes itself useful to the farmer by 

 devouring leaf -bee ties, including the grapevine colaspis, southern 

 corn leaf-beetle, and other injurious species; wireworms and their 

 adult forms, the click beetles; white grubs and their parents, the May 



497 



FIG. 5. Upland plover. 



