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BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER. 
CHARADRIUS HELVETICUS, Wi1son. 
PLATE CCCXXXIV, Mate in SummMER, Youne, anD ADULT IN WINTER. 
Tuis beautiful bird makes its appearance on our southern coasts in 
the beginning of April, as I had many opportunities of observing in the 
course of my journey along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, in the 
spring of 1837. Instead of being congregated in large flocks, as is the 
case during their southward migration in autumn, they are seen com- 
ing in small numbers, but at short intervals, so as almost to form a con- 
tinuous line. ‘They travel chiefly by night, and rest for a great part 
of the day along the margins of the sea, either reposing on the ‘sands 
in the sunshine, or searching the beaches for food. After dusk their 
well-known cries give note of their passage, but by day they remain 
silent, even when forced to betake themselves to flight. On such oc- 
casions they generally wheel over the waters, and not unfrequently re- 
turn to the spot which they had at first selected. I have traced this 
species along the whole of our eastern coast, and beyond it to the rug- 
ged shores of Labrador, where my party procured a few, on the moss- 
covered rocks, although we did not then find any nests, and where some 
young birds were obtained in the beginning of August. 
Individuals of this species spend the summer months in the mountain- 
ous parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, where they breed. 
I found their nests near the waters of the Delaware and the Perkioming 
Creek, when I resided in the first of these States, and in the same lo- 
calities as those of Totanus Bartramius, as well as in ploughed fields. 
The nest is merely a slight hollow with afew blades of grass. The 
eggs are four, an inch and seven and a-half eighths in length, an inch 
and three-eighths in their greatest breadth ; their ground-coiour yel- 
lowish-white, tinged with olivaceous, and pretty generally covered with 
blotches and dots of light brown, and pale purple, the markings being 
more abundant toward the small end. Their form is s:milar to that 
of the egg of the Guillemot, that is, broadly rounded at the large end, 
then tapering, with the sides nearly straight, and the narrow end 
rounded. When sitting, these birds will remain until they are almost 
trodden upon. On being started, they fly off a few yards, alight running, 
