KILDEER PLOVEE. 193 



'riie flight of the Kildeer is strong and rapid, and is at times pro- 

 tracted to a great distance. It skims quite low over the ground, or plays 

 at a great height in the air, particularly during the love season, when 

 you may see these birds performing all sorts of evolutions on wing. On 

 the ground their speed is such that it has become proverbial, and to " run 

 like a Kildee," is to move with the utmost possible agility. Their oi'di- 

 nary posture when standing, might be called stiif, were they not so beau- 

 tiful in form and colouring. When pursued over a large space, they 

 are able to lead you from one spot to another more than twenty times in 

 the course of an hour ; and the more you follow them, the more .shy do 

 they become, vmtil wearied and hungry, as the fox said of the grapes, 

 you will probably begin to think them poor and insipid after all. 



Now you see the Kildee wading in the water, and observe how it 

 splashes it about. Down it lays itself, and with fluttering wings, seems 

 to enjoy the sight of the drops trickling over its silky back. Now drip- 

 ping and almost soaked to the skin, it retires to the warm earth, to dry 

 its plumage and clear it of insects. 



This species breeds in Louisiana about the beginning of April ; in the 

 Middle States a full month later, as well as in the Western Country and 

 farther north. Not one, however, has ever been found breeding in the 

 low lands of South Carolina, although these birds remain there until the 

 beginning of May. The nests are various, some being merely a hollow 

 scooped in the bare ground, while at other times the Kildee searches for 

 a place on the edge of a pond, forms a hollow, and constructs a nest cf 

 grass, at the foot of a thick bunch of plants. Now and then small 

 pebbles and fi-agments of shells are raised in the form ;^of a rim around 

 the eggs, on which the sitting bird is seen as if elevated two or three 

 inches. Wilson saw nests of this kind ; so have I ; and the circumstance 

 appeared as strange to me as that of the birds not breeding in the low 

 lands of the Carolinas. The eggs are almost always four, pyriform, well 

 pointed at the small end, an inch and five-eighths in length, an inch and 

 one eighth in diameter at the broadest part, and of a deep cream colour, 

 pretty generally marked all over with small irregular blotches of purplish- 

 brown and black. The young, as soon as hatched, run about. At this 

 period, or during incubation, the parents, who sit alternately on the eggs, 

 never leaving them to the heat of the sun, are extremely clamorous at 

 sight of an enemy. The female droops her wings, emits her plaintive 

 notes, and endeavours by every means she can devise to draw you from 



VOL. Ill, V N 



