OF VIRGINIA 75 
exceptionally active birds on their legs, and one can follow 
an unstartled bird all over a field many times, the bird 
running ahead some thirty to fifty feet, all the while 
gathering up insects at each interval of stopping. 
The nest is placed in some open field, pasture or corn 
field, a slight depression in the ground, with a few straws 
or blades of grass as a lining. The eggs number three to 
four, and are pyriform in shape. The ground color when 
fresh a beautiful light olive buff, heavily blotched and 
spotted with black. Size, 1.52x1.12. The birds wintering 
with us are presumably northern birds, while our breeding 
birds migrate further southward. Only one brood a 
season, the young, like all the shore birds, leaving the nest 
almost as soon as being hatched. Fresh eggs May 20th 
to June Ist. The great amount of grasshoppers, locusts, 
beetles, earthworms, caterpillars and other insects, eaten by 
these birds should place them at the front of the beneficial 
list of birds, and every landowner in the country should 
give them the best of protection. 
GENUs /EGIALITIS. 
[277]. Afgialitis meloda (Ord.). Piping Plover. 
[Little Plover. Ring Neck]. 
Ranex.—KEastern North America. Breeds locally from 
southern Saskatchewan, southern Ontario, Magdalen 
Islands, and Nova Scotia south to central Nebraska, north- 
western Indiana, Lake Erie, and Virginia; winters on the 
coast of the United States from Texas to Georgia, and in 
northern Mexico; casual in migration to Newfoundland, 
the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and Bermuda. 
