The Snowy Plover 



rock-oysters, as well as over the intervening sand-beds, and especially 

 about the margins of pools left by the receding tide. Here I followed 

 them with the camera, creeping or shuffling about most humbly, and so 

 far succeeded in winning their confidence as to obtain sixteen plates at 

 distances ranging from fifteen to thirty feet. The Plovers were content, 

 apparently, to regard me as a sort of amiable Triton come ashore to rest, 

 but I heartily wished myself a fellow Charadrins, so that I, too, might trip 

 about nimbly snapping up unsalted dainties from the clean white sand, 

 — or else that I might engage in one of those playful tilts where, with 

 ruffled wings and a teetering cry of defiance, one little midget charges at 

 another who has trespassed upon his preserves. A few Western Sand- 

 pipers mingled freely among the Plovers and appeared to occasion less dis- 

 trust on the part of the Plovers than others of their own kind. Per- 

 haps the 'tilts' were chiefly amorous in spirit and not actually hostile. 



No. 258 



Snowy Plover 



A. O. U. No. 278. Charadrius nivosus nivosus (Cassin). 



Description. — Adult male in summer: Somewhat similar to C. semipalmatiis, 

 but bill entirely black, and black markings of head much reduced; upperparts pale 

 ashy gray, tinged faintly on back, strongly on crown with orange-buffy ; wing-quills 

 fuscous and black with some outcropping white on outer webs of inner primaries; 

 greater coverts and primary coverts tipped with whitish; a short black bar across crown, 

 not extending to eyes; a black post-ocular stripe curving downward behind auriculars; 

 a touch of black on lores anteriorly; a transverse patch of black on each side of breast 

 (vestiges of the pectoral collar which marks other species) ; forehead broadly, sides of 

 head, a cervical collar, and underparts snowy white. Bill and feet black. Adult 

 female in summer: Similar to male, but a little duller; crown less tinged with orange- 

 buffy; the black areas invaded more or less by color of back. Adults in winter: Still 

 duller; orange-buffy tinge wanting above; the black areas of male largely admixed with 

 gray; the corresponding areas in female entirely gray (color of back). Immature: 

 Like adult female in winter, but gray of upperparts a little darker and somewhat 

 varied by paler edgings. Length of adult: 158. 8-184.2 (6.25-7.25); wing 103.4 (4-io); 

 bill 14. 1 (.55); tarsus 25.4 (1.00). 



Recognition Marks. — Sparrow size; pale coloration; beach-haunting habits; 

 bill entirely black, and pectoral collar not continuous across chest, as distinguished 

 from C. semipalmatiis. 



Nesting. — Nest: A mere hollow in sand of upper beach, lined or not, with 

 broken clam-shells. Eggs: 3 (4 of record); ovate or short ovate; sand-color, pale 

 olive-buff, sharply, finely, sparingly, and rather uniformly marked with black. Av. 

 of 15 sets in the M. C. O. coll.; 30.2 x 22.1 (1.19 x .87); index 73. Season: April- 

 July; two broods. 



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