634 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, 



.^GIALITIS VOCIFERA, {Linn.) Bp, 

 KiLDEER Plover. 



Abundant thoaghout the sammer in all suitable places ; and as it is 

 not a fastidious bird, it seemed to be satisfied anywhere near water, 

 though hardly upon the dry plains, like the following species. A nest 

 with eggs was taken June 30 near the mouth of Milk Eiver — rather, the 

 eggs were taken from a slight depression on the pebbly margin of a 

 stream, which answered for a nest. 



List of specimens. 



ENDROMIAS MOKTANUS, (Towns.) Earting. 



Mountain Plover. 



The occurrence of this bird in the Milk Eiver country, along the pa- 

 rallel of 49°, where it was breeding in considerable numbers, is a matter 

 of interest, as fixing the northernmost points at which the species has 

 thus far been observed. It does not appear to enter the Eed Eiver 

 BasiD,,nor did I see it in the immediate vicinity of the Missouri below the 

 mouth of Milk Eiver. At this point, it was first seen July 1, and it was 

 traced thence across the country nearly to the Sweetgrass Hills, beyond 

 which it was lost. Its centre of abundance in this region was the vicinity 

 of Frenchman's Eiver, where many specimens, both adult and young, 

 together with a set of three eggs, were secured during the first and 

 second weeks in July. Three I believe to be the usual number. The 

 birds seem to be at no time very wary or suspicious, and when they 

 have a nest near by, or are leading their young over the prairie, they 

 will scarcely retreat before threatened danger. Upon invasion of their 

 breeding-places, they utter a singular, low, chattering cry, quite unlike 

 the usual soft, mellow whistle, fly low over the ground to a short dis- 

 tance, or run swiftly for a few paces, and then stand motionless, drawn 

 up to their full stature. The chicks are white beneath, curiously varie- 

 gated in color above, with naked livid spaces about the neck. Almost,, 

 from the first, they are difficult to capture alive ; at the note of warning 

 from the parent, they scatter with amazing celerity, and soon squat, 

 when they become at once invisible, even in the scantiest herbage of the 



