WATER BIRDS 



already seen, the habits of these two groups of 

 shore birds in this respect can be discovered 

 by their tracks. 



The golden plover is rarely found on this 

 shore, and then only when it is blown out of 

 its usual course, some two hundred miles or 

 more to the eastward, for it has the extraor- 

 dinary habit, after coming from its arctic 

 breeding grounds, of migrating from Nova 

 Scotia to South America, a distance of 2,400 

 miles over the ocean. Prom the northern 

 coast of South America it journeys to Argen- 

 tina, where it spends our winter, the South 

 American summer. In the spring it migrates 

 up the Mississij)pi valley, and finally reaches 

 its home by the Arctic Ocean. 



The black-bellied plover or beetle-head is, 

 however, more a bird of our coast, for it mi- 

 grates along our shore both spring and fall. 

 It is a little bigger than the golden plover and 

 is indeed a splendid bird with a body as large 

 as that of a pigeon. It differs from the golden 

 plover also in having a little knob of a hind 

 toe, while the golden plover has no hind toe 

 at all, and its under wing feathers or axil- 

 laries are black, while those of the golden 

 plover are ashy. Its white rump is, how- 



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