28 BRITISH BIRDS. 



The Killdeer Plover (Charadrius vociferus] has been included in the 

 British list, hut on unsatisfactory evidence. A mounted example of this 

 bird, in a glass case, was brought to Mr. Sclater by Mr. J. R. Wise, who 

 stated that it had been killed near Christchurch in Hampshire in April 

 1857, and was taken in the flesh to a local birdstuffer, by whom it was 

 sold to its then owner, a Mr. Tanner (Sclater, 'Ibis/ 1862, p. 275). 



The Killdeer Plover breeds throughout the United States of America 

 and in Southern Canada. In the Southern States it is a resident, but to 

 the Northern States and to Canada it is only a summer visitor, migrating 

 in autumn to Mexico, the West Indies, Central America, and the northern 

 portions of South America. It is said that a few remain to breed in 

 Mexico and Jamaica. The fact that it passes the Bermuda Islands regu- 

 larly on migration in small flocks makes it not improbable that it may 

 occasionally visit the British Islands. 



The Killdeer Plover is the American representative of our Greater 

 Ringed Plover, though in some points it has a slight resemblance to the 

 Dotterel. Its buff rump and upper tail-coverts recall the colours of that 

 bird; and its habit of running over ploughed land and grass-fields is 

 another point of resemblance. It is a gregarious bird. Allan Brooks and 

 I met with a party of ten on the banks of a creek near his father's farm at 

 Milton in Upper Canada, and watched them for some time. They run 

 along the ground with great rapidity, sometimes wading in the water and 

 occasionally jerking up their tails and nodding their heads like the Ringed 

 Plover. They are very noisy birds, continually calling to each other, and, 

 though it was autumn (the last week of August), we several times saw 

 them fluttering with extended uplifted wings as they toyed with each other, 

 uttering a trill like that of the Wood-Sandpiper or Temrninck's Stint. 

 Their ordinary call-note is a loud clear whistle, tut, tilt, tut, which, when 

 they are alarmed or anxious, is lengthened out into a double note, too-it, 

 plaintive and long drawn, which the imagination of the Canadian hunters 

 has expressed by the name of "kill-deer." They can fly with great 

 rapidity with wings bent at a considerable angle, but we had no difficulty 

 in shooting a couple. One reason of the noisiness of the birds may have 

 been the presence of a Buzzard and a couple of Harriers, which were 

 sailing about over the creek. 



The breeding-season of the Killdeer Plover commences, it is said, in 

 the beginning of April in Louisiana, in the middle States in May, but 

 in the Saskatchewan not until June. The nest is very simple, being 

 nothing but a hollow in the ground, sometimes lined with a few scraps of 

 herbage. The eggs are four in number, pale buff in ground-colour, 

 blotched and spotted with dark blackish brown and underlying markings 

 of greyish brown. The egg of this bird is figured on Plate 26. When 

 their eggs or young are menaced by danger the old birds become very 



