BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



These birds would remain about two weeks, or until the wheat had 

 sprouted. They subsisted almost exclusively on wheat. My informant 

 states that prior to 1860, for at least fifteen years, these birds annually, 

 in the fall, made these visits, and that he had always been told, when a 

 boy, that "Bull-heads" were abundant every year. 



Audubon furnishes the following 1 information of this species : "While 

 searching for food on the sand or mud bars of the seashore they move 

 in a direct manner, often look sideways toward the ground, and pick up 

 the object of their search by a peculiar bending movement of the body. 

 They are frequently observed to pat the moist earth with their feet to 

 force worms from their burrows. In autumn they betake themselves to 

 the higher grounds, where berries as well as insects are to be met with, 

 and where they find abundance of grasshoppers." 



Five of these plovers taken in September and October, 1880, in Ches- 

 ter county, had fed chiefly on grasshoppers and beetles ; one had in its 

 stomach a few small brownish seeds, with several large beetles, and an- 

 other had its stomach gorged with grasshoppers with which were a few 

 small black-colored worms. 



GENUS ^JGIALITIS BOIK. 

 vocifera (LiNN.). 



Killdeer. 



DESCRIPTION (Plate 11). 



Upper parts grayish-brown; rump and upper tail-coverts brownish-orange or rusty ; 

 forehead and under parts white, except two black bands across chest; bill black ; 

 iris dark-brown ; legs grayish or dull greenish-yellow ; eyelids scarlet. Length 

 about 9 or 10 inches ; extent about 20 ; tail rounded and about 3| inches long ; bill less 

 than an inch long. 



Habitat. Temperate North America, migrating in winter to the West Indies and 

 central and northern South America. 



Reader, I am sure you can always distinguish this bird by the well- 

 known cry which gives rise to its common name. Should you, however, 

 have the lifeless body of one of these birds, you can without any diffi- 

 culty distinguish it from other of its numerous relatives by the red eye- 

 lids and long legs. In addition you will also see a white line, with 

 black margin, extending over the bill, between the eyes. The white 

 feathers of the throat are continuous, with a conspicuous and immacu- 

 late collar, below which is a ring of black, separated by a streak of white 

 from a band of black across the breast. 



During the spring, summer and autumn the Kildeer is common in 

 nearly all parts of Pennsylvania, and in winter it is quite frequently 

 observed, particularly in the southern parts of the state. The spotted 

 pyriform eggs, usually four in number, are placed in a slight hollow in 

 the ground, oftentimes near a hill of corn. 



