208 UPLAND SHOOTING. 



My Italian friend gave me one hint that shooters may 

 well notice. He claimed that in the fall, when the birds 

 are so very fat, No. 7 is a better shot to use than No. 8, 

 as the latter shot is hardly heavy enough to pierce the 

 heavy layer of fat which fairly swaddles the birds at that 

 season of the year. In the spring, No. 8 is the correct 

 shot, unless one is trying to walk upon the birds, or to 

 shoot them from a vehicle after they have grown wild. 



For the upland plover, my market-shooter expressed 

 an unqualified contempt, partly because it brings so little 

 in the market, and partly because it can not be worked 

 with decoys. Neither did he care for the " May plover," 

 "prairie plover," "gray plover," or "sand-snipe," 

 whose dense flocks sometimes wheel in over the decoys 

 and leave heavy tribute behind them. We also can 

 afford to leave this latter little bird out of our consid- 

 eration as a game bird, and now pass on to our second 

 plover, not so good a game bird as the golden plover, 

 but perhaps even more widely known. 



THE UPLAND PLOVER (Bartramia longicanda, Less.). 

 This bird is called "grass plover" in Texas and most 

 of the South, and in the Southwest. It is called " papa- 

 botte" in New Orleans, where it is much prized as a 

 delicacy. It has different local names in the North, some- 

 times being known as the " yellow-leg," which is wrong, 

 as confusing it with the yellow-shanked tatler, and 

 besides as being not descriptive. It is sometimes loosely 

 called "prairie runner," "spring plover," or "tilt-up." 

 The name of "upland plover," however, is one very 

 widely known for it, and will instantly bring the bird to 

 mind for every upland shooter in Illinois, Indiana, lou a. 

 Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota, and the entire West and mid- 

 continent generally. 



If the golden plover is a bold traveler, the upland 

 plover is yet more so. Few birds are more widely 



