190 BIRD NAMES. [No. 55. 



BLACK -BELLIED PLOVER: SWISS PLOVER: WHISTLING 

 PLOVER (see No. 56) : OX-EYE (given also to those very com- 

 mon and very small sandpipers, Trvnga minutitta and Ereunetes 

 pusillus, better known as " peeps ") : SWISS SANDPIPER and 

 GRAY SANDPIPER of Pennant, and GRAY LAPWING of Swain- 

 son and Richardson. Wilson writes : " Called by many gunners 

 along the coast the BLACK-BELLIED KILLDEER;" and again: 

 " This bird is known in some parts of the country by the 

 name of the large whistling field plover. It generally makes its 

 first appearance in Pennsylvania late in April ; frequents the 

 countries towards the mountains ; seems particularly attached 

 to newly ploughed fields, where it forms its nest." Audubon 

 speaks of its breeding " in the mountainous parts of Maryland, 

 Pennsylvania, and Connecticut," and of finding its nests " in 

 the same localities as those of Totcmus hartramius " (now Bar- 

 tramia longicauda), and he adds that it is known " in Penn- 

 sylvania by the name of whistling field plover." Nuttall also 

 calls it "large whistling field plover," and speaks of its being 

 " known to breed from the open grounds of Pennsylvania to the 

 very extremity of the Arctic regions ;" and Dr. Lewis, in his 

 American Sportsman, tells of its returning from the South early 

 in May, and soon after retiring to the " high upland districts to 

 breed," and of its being known " at this time more particularly 

 as the old field -plover or whistling plover," and he adds: "A 

 most capital manoeuvre, and one adopted by some of our sport- 

 ing friends in the country, is to approach them in a careless man- 

 ner, either in an old wagon or cart or on horseback, as they 

 seldom take alarm at a horse or a vehicle of any description." 

 Now No. 55 does not breed in the United States, and Wilson 

 .and. the rest got it sadly mixed up with the Bartramian Sand- 

 piper, No. 50 ; and Dr. Lewis's account of the manner in which 

 his birds were pursued is plainly a description of a venerable 

 trick still practised on " field plover " No. 50. 



I have found neither this bird (No. 55) nor the following 

 plover (No. 56), sufficiently well known or common enough along 

 the Maine coast from Eastpoi-t to Ash Point to have any well- 

 established names. With the exception of a few individuals who 



