198 TJPLAjSTD shootiw<>. 



learned disquisition. The unnamed flowers are the 

 sweetest, the unclassified bird has the sweetest note of 

 the air, and the unclassif ying writer or reader the freest 

 sweep of the wing, be that of fact or fancy. The sports- 

 man, however, is naturally half naturalist. This is what 

 Audubon says for us about our bird: 



" Family Charadriince — plovers. Bill, short, straight, 

 subcylindrical, and obtusely pointed; upper mandible, 

 with dorsal line straight for one-half ifs length, after- 

 ward, convex; nasal groove, bare, extended along two- 

 thirds the length of the bill. Head, moderate size, rather 

 compressed, rounded in front. Eyes, large. Neck, rather 

 short. Body, ovate, rather full. Plumage, soft, blended, 

 somewhat compact above. Wings, long, pointed, with 

 the first quill longest. Tail, of moderate length, some- 

 what rounded, or with middle feathers projecting; of 

 twelve feathers. Nest, on ground, shallow; eggs, gen- 

 erally four, large, pyriform, spotted. Young, densely 

 covered with down, and able to walk immediately after 

 birth." 



In the above description, it is probable that the 

 average sportsman will remember, out of his own experi- 

 ence, only the rounded head, the large eye, the short 

 neck, and the "ovate, rather full" body, noticeable as 

 salient form-features in the species of plover familiar to 

 himself. When it comes to the matter of coloration, 

 there is wide divergence in the plover types, and in many 

 cases the scientific description will not call to mind any 

 bird familiar to the inland or Western shooter. Audubon 

 gives seven species of the genus GTiaradrius, which may 

 be briefly mentioned as the black-bellied plover, the 

 golden plover, the Kocky Mountain plover, the killdeer 

 plover, the Wilson's plover, the American ring plover, 

 and the piping plover. With the exception of the golden 

 plover, none of these birds is of such habits, or such 



