184 FEATHERED GAME 
these birds as anything but plovers, or would 
know what bird was meant if called anything 
but a ‘‘Winter,’’ or a ‘‘Summer, Yellow-leg 
Plover,’’ so general is the use of these names in 
New England. 
The ‘‘Winters’’ seldom gather into large 
flocks of their own kind save in the spring mi- 
grations, generally preferring to associate with 
other species, as the ‘‘Summers,’’ smaller sand- 
pipers, grass-birds, etc. They are found most- 
ly on the soft, oozy edges of the ‘‘pondholes’’ in 
the marshes, along the muddy ‘‘flats’’ of the 
tide-waters and in the bog holes of the fresh 
water swamps. In the far north, on the bank 
of inland pond or marsh, they build their nests 
and raise their broods of four or five long- 
legged, odd-looking youngsters which run about 
almost from birth, following their parents in a 
scramble for daily rations, escaping danger by 
squatting down in the long grass and keeping 
perfectly quiet until the coast is clear. 
The ‘‘Winter’’ arrives in New England about 
the middle of April and breeds from this lati- 
tude northward, most of them going further on. 
The nest, though sometimes built on an old 
stump, is oftener a slight hollow scooped out of 
