348 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



12th. In the interior of New York the decline of the Golden plover is even 

 more marked than on Long Island, but a few still occur each season, the 

 migration beginning from the 20th of August to the 5th of September, and 

 ending from the 15th to the 28th of October, or rarely the 8th of November. 

 The Golden plover, Green-back, or Frost bird, is one of our most highh- 

 prized game birds. After the first sharp frost of autumn they usually occur 

 in the greatest numbers, being fat and well-flavored from a continued diet 

 of berries and grasshoppers. In a rolling country they can be stalked by 

 the sportsmen, but along the coast are usually shot over decoys, often 

 responding easily to an imitation of their whistle. When a flock is 

 approaching the decoys, all the birds seem to be whistling at the same 

 time, their note resembling the syllables, coodle, coodle, coodle [Mackay, 

 Auk, 8:17-24]. On the feeding grounds they run rapidly in quest of 

 food, suddenly stopping after a short run, in the manner of plovers in 

 general, and stand erect in graceful pose. When flying from one part 

 of the field to another they utter their mellow whistling note and alight 

 with upstretched wings to scatter immediately in further search for food. 



Oxyechus vociferus (Linnaeus) 

 Killdeer Plover 



Plate 39 



Charadrius vociferus Linnaeus. Syst. Nat. Ed. 10. 1758. i : 150 



DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. Pt 2, p. 212, fig. 181 

 Aegialitis vocifera A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 2. 1895. No. 273 



oxye'chus, Gr. o^'''tj-/o?, sharp-sounding, of high notes; voct'ferus, Lat., noisy, 



vociferous 



Description. Wings long; tail long, rounded; bill slender; black band 

 encircling the base of the neck, broadest in front, another below this across 

 the breast separated from it by white or buffy white; a blackish stripe 

 extending back from the sides of the bill below the eye ; a black band from 

 one eye over the front of the crown to the other eye, separating this from 

 the base of the bill a white frontlet; throat white extending as a half collar 

 around the back of the neck; a space behind the eyes white changing to 

 buflfy ; thus when the bird is facing the observer, it presents jour black hands 

 separated by white; top of head and upjjer parts grayish brown; rump. 



