AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 41 



jecting limb which keeps out the rain. The entrance to the nest is 

 usually oval in shape and varies in size from five to eight inches in 

 width by eight to ten inches in length. The cavity is excavated to a 

 depth of from a foot to two feet. With the cunning of the Flicker they 

 carefully carry the chips away from the nesting tree, whereas when 

 they are simply feeding chips will be found by the bushes around the 

 base of the tree. They lay five or six glossy white eggs, measuring 

 about 1.45 X 1.05. They are very industrious birds and hack great 

 quantities of chips from trees in their search for grubs. They do not, 

 however, to any great extent, except for nesting purposes, deface 

 living trees. 



KILLDEER. 



A. O. U. No. 373. (Oxyechus vociferus)' 



RANGE. 



North America from the southern British Provinces southward. Rare 

 on the Atlantic coast north of New Jersey. Winters in southern United 

 States and south to South America. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Length 10 inches. Upper parts grayish brown; forehead, line over 

 eye, throat neck, and underparts white; breast crossed by two black 

 bands, the upper one being the widest; upper tail coverts and rump 

 reddish brown. The downy young show evidences of the two breast 

 marks as soon as they leave the shell. 



NEST AND EGGS 



Kildeers build no nest, unless the occasional scratching together of a 

 few pebbles or bits of straw into a hollow can be called such, but lay 

 their eggs in hollows in the ground in fields, marshes, or even on plow- 

 ed ground, but usually in the immediate vicinity of water. Their three 

 or four eggs are very handsomely marked, as indeed are nearly all the 

 shore birds; they are very pointed, of a greenish buff color and heavily 

 blotched and scrawled with blackish brown; size .55 x 1.10. 



HABITS. 



Like all of our true Plover, except the Black-bellied, the Killdeers 

 have but three toes. In the greater part of the United States they are 

 the most common shore bird, even outnumbering the Spotted Sand- 

 piper, and their loud "kill-dee, kill-dee" is frequently uttered for their 

 own amusement as wellas for warning when they see anyone approach- 

 ing. For this reason they often prove to be very useful birds, for they 



