324 Bartram's Sandpiper Upland Plover 



To see this bird at its best one must go to 

 the big grass states, from Illinois and Kansas, 

 southward to Texas. In portions of the last- 

 named state it frequently is seen in great 

 flocks, the like of which are unknown in the 

 East. Some twenty years ago, in a corner of 

 Illinois, I saw more "gray plover," as they were 

 then called, than could be counted by any one 

 short of a lightning calculator. Such a spectacle 

 was perhaps never seen much farther East, even 

 in localities where the plover is deemed a very 

 common bird. 



In regions much shot over, which means the 

 bird's eastern range, it is by no means an easy 

 quarry; in fact, it seldom allows itself to be ap- 

 proached within the reliable range of even a fine 

 gun. One may see hundreds running about, or 

 standing motionless and sharply defined above 

 the grass, and yet fail to make anything like a 

 heavy bag. Old settlers have told me that in 

 the early days of settlement on the plains, the 

 birds were almost fearless, and their incessant 

 scolding at an intruder was at times positively 

 annoying; but when my day in the West began 

 there was very little of that sort of thing. The 

 sandpiper seemed to have acquired a very useful 

 idea concerning the range of modern firearms, 

 and only in the spring and while the young were 

 unable to fly did the older birds betray any reck- 



