148 BIRDS 



Lake Manitoba, Canada, are frequented by this retiring 

 shore bird. Along the Atlantic Coast from Long Island 

 to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the birds breed among the 

 debris not far above high-water mark. They winter from 

 Florida southward. 



The dark band across the breast is more distinct in 

 some species; hence, for a time, scientists divided the birds, 

 calling the eastern forms the piping plover, and the birds 

 taken west of Lake Erie were described as the belted 

 piping plover. Further investigation developed the fact 

 that the range had practically nothing to do with the dis- 

 tinctiveness of the band on the breast, and the birds are 

 all now recognized as the piping plover. 



May 30, 1911, we plodded through the sand among the 

 scant evergreen and sand dunes overlooking the south 

 shore of Lake Michigan, a desolate countrj", too clean and 

 barren of plant and animal life to satisfy many birds. 

 Small colonies of bank swallows were perforating the little 

 perpendicular bluffs, and about the old pine stubs the 

 white-bellied swallows hovered, while occasionally a herring 

 gull patrolled the beach, as a scavenger. A metallic peep 

 came from the base of a sand dune, and with field glasses 

 I carefully scanned the vast waste. A piping plover flitted 

 across the beach, circling over the pebbles and driftwood, 

 and squatted in the center of a little elevation just back of 

 a sheltering log. As I approached the sitting bird, she 

 rapidly ran in a wide circle, joining her mate. Both were 

 solicitous and approached me in a distressed attitude, plain- 

 tively protesting at my intrusion, by calhng in their mellow 

 notes which were so in keeping with the bleak surroundings. 



