74 WILSON'S PLOVER. 



on'one toe and not on the rest, and why that toe itself is so cut. But alas ! 

 Wilson was with me only a few times, and then iwthing worthy of his 

 attention was procured. 



This interesting species, which always looks to me as if in form a 

 miniature copy of the Black-bellied Plover, is a constant resident in 

 the southern districts of the Union. There it breeds, and there too 

 it spends the winter. Many individuals, no doubt, move farther south, 

 but great numbers are at all times to be met with from Carolina to 

 the mouths of the Mississippi, and in all these places I have found it 

 the whole year round. Some go as far to the eastward as Long Island 

 in the State of New York, where, however, they are considered as rarities; 

 but beyond this, none, I believe, are seen along our eastern shores. 

 This circumstance has seemed the more surprising to me, that its relative 

 the Piping Plover proceeds as far as the Magdeleine Islands ; and that 

 the latter bird should also breed in the Carolinas a month earlier than 

 Wilson's Plover ever does, seems to me not less astonishing. 



Wilson's Plover begins to lay its eggs about the time when the young 

 of the Piping Plover are running after their parents. Twenty or thirty 

 yards from the uppermost beat of the waves, on the first of June, or 

 some day not distant from it, the female may be seen scratching a small 

 cavity in the shelly sand, in which she deposits four eggs, placing them 

 carefully with the broad end outermost. The eggs, which measure an 

 inch and a quarter by seven and a half eighths, are of a dull cream co- 

 lour, sparingly sprinkled all over Avith dots of pale purple and spots of 

 dark brown. The eggs vary somewhat in size, and in their ground co- 

 lour, but less than those of many other species of the genus. The young 

 follow their parents as soon as they are hatched, and the latter employ 

 every artifice common to birds of this family, to entice their enemies to 

 follow them and thus save their oflPspring. 



The flight of this species is rapid, elegant, and protracted. While 

 travelling from one sand-beach or island to another, they fly low over the 

 land or water, emitting a fine clear soft note. Now and then, when after 

 the breeding season they form into flocks of twenty or thirty, they per- 

 form various evolutions in the air, cutting backwards and forwards, as if 

 inspecting the spot on which they wish to alight, and then suddenly 

 descend, sometimes on the sea-beach, and sometimes on the more elevated 

 sands at a little distance from it. They do not run so nimbly as the Pip- 

 ing Plovers, nor are they nearly so shy. I have in fact frequently walked 



