454 ^GIALITIS SEMIPALMATA, SEMIPALMATED PLOVER. 



through May, after which none are to be observed until late in August 

 following, they being engaged to the northward in the duties of repro- 

 duction. Before their departure from our coasts in the spring, they 

 assume the perfect breeding dress, with brightly- colored bill, feet, and 

 eye-lids, and perfect black bars. Eeturning in August, in limited num- 

 bers, the great body come after in September, thronging the beaches in 

 company with various Sandpipers. In Labrador, where I found them 

 breeding abundantly, they remained, apparently as plenty as ever, up 

 to the first week in September, frequenting both the sea-beaches and 

 the mud-flats, with Bonaparte's and the Semipalmated Sandpipers, in 

 scattering troops, eagerly searching for food. Here they were more than 

 ordinarily gentle and unsuspicious, especially the young ones, wholly 

 unaccustomed to the presence of man. Subsequently, after persecution 

 by the boys and pot-hunters, to whom they are objects of wanton pur- 

 suit, they seem to acquire a little wisdom by experience, though they 

 cannot be regarded as wary under any circumstances. Their call-note 

 is a mellow whistle, much like that of their allies, yet distinguishable. 

 In the interior of our country the Plovers are nowhere so numerous, 

 according to my observations, as they are along the coasts ; yet they 

 migrate in considerable numbers along the main water-courses, and are 

 of regular occurrence each season, in April and May, September and 

 October. Such is more particularly the case in the better-watered east- 

 ern portions of the Missouri region than in the dryer districts westward. 

 I ha\e, however, met with it on the Oolorado Eiver, which penetrates 

 hundreds of miles into the desert. 



The nesting of the Semipalmated Plover is not peculiar, the arrange- 

 ments being the same as those made by most birds of the family. The 

 eggs are laid in a depression of the ground, in a grassy or mossy spot, 

 lined with a few blades of the same substances. The eggs vary in number 

 from two* to four, the fewer being laid, it would appear, in the higher 

 latitudes. They are hardly or not distinguishable from Killdeer eggs 

 excepting by their smaller size, having the same ground-color and tone 

 of the markings. The ground ranges from quite olivaceous-drab to 

 pale clay-color, or even grayish-white, some of these lightest and least 



* There are numerous exceptions to the rule of four eggs among the limicoline hirds. 

 Wilsonife Plover is another instance, the more unexpected in that the bird breeds in 

 comparatively low latitudes of the Middle and Southern States, along the coast. In 

 none of the many nests I found on the sea-shore of North Carolina were there more 

 than three eggs. Tuey offer the following characters : Length, 1.22 to 1.45; breadth, 

 1.00 to 1.05; ground-color, pale olive-drab, more inclining to green in some cases, to 

 brown in others, but always very pale, thickly marked all over with blackish-brown 

 in irregular, sharply-defined spots, small splashes, andjine dots. " In some specimens 

 the markings show a tendency to run into tine lines, and in these are the smallest, 

 darkest, most numerous [most evenly distributed], and most sharply outlined ; but 

 ordinarily the distinctive speckled character is maintained. Commonly the markings 

 are rather larger, and consequently more thickly set, on the larger part of the egg, 

 where there is also some tendency to run together, though scarcely to form a ring 

 around the butt ; but in none of the specimens examined was the pointecl end free from 

 spots. Here and there may usually be observed a few pale, obsolete spots, but they 

 are not conspicuous ; in fact, hardly to be detected without close scrutiny." (Cohes, 

 Am. A'at. iu, 1869, p. 348.) 



Comparing the eggs of all the species of .^ialitis mentioned in this work, as they 

 lie before me in large series (excepting those of .<®. moutanus, of which I have only three), 

 we see that the Kildeer's and Eingneck's are essentially alike, only of different sizes. 

 Wilson's and the Piping Plover's are approximately similar, both averaging lighter in 

 ground-color and of fewer markings, but the latter are very appreciably paler and less 

 marked than the former ; and the egg of ^. montanus stands somewhat alone, not only 

 in its dark-olive ground-color and nearly even, fine speckling, but also in in its shape, 

 which is notably less pyriform than that of the others, or than that of Plovers in 

 general. 



