Birds of Massachusetts. 207 
The Brack-sELLIED Piover, Charadrius Helvet- 
icus, called sometimes the large Whistling Field 
Plover, because of its attachment to newly-ploughed 
fields, where it finds the insects and berries which 
compose its food, is found over a large extent of 
country, having breeding places from Pennsylvania 
to the most distant northern regions known to civ- 
ized man. It often chooses the field for the place 
of its nest, which is carelessly made of dry grass, 
and in which are laid four eggs, of cream color, 
dashed with black. Nuttall says, that their nests are 
of rare occurrence in New England, but does not 
say whether he had ever found them. In the sum- 
mer they feed on various berries, and are valued as 
food. At the close of August, they go down with 
their young to the borders of the sea, where they 
live on such materials as the shores afford them. 
They are called the beetle-headed plovers, and some- 
times the kildeer, from their cry, in which they re- 
semble that restless bird, as well as in their never- 
resting suspicion. Toward the last of September 
they collect in great flocks, preparatory to their 
migration, but linger with us for a considerable 
time before they go. 
The Turnstone, Strepsilus interpres, derives its 
popular name from the habit of turning over stones 
with the bill and sometimes the breast, to find in- 
sects and worms beneath them, a habit which they 
are said to retain when in a domesticated state. 
They arrive in the spring, and linger on the shores 
till the summer, when they hurry away to the deso- 
x 2 
5^ XE. 
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