414 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



beach on the seashore and marshes in its neighborhood, 

 where it feeds on small shell-fish and animalcules, and such 

 seeds as it may find at that early season. It is, at this 

 period, thin in flesh, but its plumage is perfect ; and it is 

 more desirable for cabinet preservation then than in the 

 fall. It is irregular in its visits in the spring migrations ; 

 being quite plenty in some seasons, and in others quite rare. 

 It passes to the most northern portions of the continent to 

 breed ; none being found in the season of incubation in the 

 limits of the United States. The flocks separate into pairs; 

 but they breed in small communities, two or three pairs 

 being found in the area of an acre. The nest is nothing 

 but a hollow in the grass or moss, on the open plain, 

 scratched by the female : in this she deposits four eggs, 

 which are oblong-pyriform in shape, of a creamy-buff color, 

 sometimes with an olive tint ; and are marked irregularly, 

 chiefly at their larger end, with spots and confluent blotches 

 of umber and obscure spots of lilac. In dimensions, they 

 average about 2.10 by 1.40 inch. It is in the fall migra- 

 tions that these birds are most actively pursued by sports- 

 men. The great flight arrives about the 25th of August, 

 sometimes a little earlier or later, if we have a driving 

 north-east storm. The gunners make it a point to be on the 

 plover grounds the last week in August and first week in 

 September : if they get no plovers then, they usually aban- 

 don the hunt for the season. In the fall of 1865, these 

 birds did not alight in New England in any numbers, but 

 were seen seven or eight miles out at sea, flying at a great 

 height, in immense flocks, towards the South, and not a 

 dozen birds were killed in localities where thousands are 

 usually taken. When the flights are conducted during a 

 storm, the birds fly low ; and the gunners, concealed in pits 

 dug in the earth in the pastures and hills over which the 

 flocks pass, with decoys made to imitate the birds, placed 

 within gunshot of their hiding-places, decoy the passing 

 flocks down within reach of their fowling-pieces, by imitat- 



