150 FIELD SHOOTING. 



female is gray, and a little smaller than the male. 

 This bird winters in the south, principally upon 

 the great grassy ranges of Texas and Northern 

 Mexico. It arrives in the prairie States about 

 ten days after the snipe, commonly about the 

 tenth of April ; but much depends on the 

 forwardness or backwardness of the spring. 

 With us there is a variation of some three 

 ■weeks between a very forward spring and one 

 that is very late. The golden plover forms one 

 of the most numerous bodies of the great mi- 

 gratory hordes which come north at the end of 

 the winter. They come in flocks, some of the 

 latter, on their arrival, being as many as three 

 or four hundred in number. At their first 

 coming they are to be found on the burnt prairies, 

 and soon after they will be seen in ploughed 

 fields and on bare pastures. They also frequent 

 young wheat which is then fairly started, and in 

 those spots where the plant has been drowned 

 out or killed by the frost these birds are sure 

 to be found. They like the bare earth and the 

 close-eaten pastures, especially those in certain 

 localities. From high knolls, where the grass 

 has been eaten off' short, they can sometimes be 

 hardly driven away. In sheep pastures the plover 



