The Snowy Plover 



Range of Charadrius nivosus. — The southern United States and northern South 

 America with included areas. Breeds (in the United States) along the Gulf Coast from 

 Florida to Texas, and in Oklahoma and Comanche County, Kansas, and in the western 

 states north (at least) to Salt Lake. 



Range of C. n. nivosus. — Breeds in California, chiefly coastwise, and in northern 

 Lower California, and interiorly north to Salt Lake. Winters from southern California 

 southward along the western coast of Mexico to Peru and Chile. Of casual occurrence 

 in Oregon, Washington (Gray's Harbor) and the Straits of Magellan. 



Distribution in California. — Common resident at local points along the coast 

 — north regularly to Pescadero (in San Mateo County). An isolated colony, possibly 

 resident, near Eureka in Humboldt County. Also occurs in the interior: Los Banos, 

 May 21, 1912, and May 21, 1914; and especially about the largerinland bodies of water; 

 Tulare Lake, May 14, 1912; Goose Lake, June 10, 1912; Owens Lake (Fisher); and 

 Salton Sea (Grinnell). 



Authorities. — Vigors (Charadrius melodus), Zool. Voy. "Blossom," 1839, p. 30 

 (San Prancisco) ; Cassin, in Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. ix., 1858, p. 696 (orig. 

 desc. ; type locality, Presidio, near San Francisco); Henshaw, Geog. Surv. W. 100th 

 Merid., 1876, p. 269 (nesting habits at Santa Barbara). 



"JUST THE CUNNINGEST little creatures that ever happened!" 

 So runs our early notebook entry made in Santa Barbara on a December 

 day, when a flock of 55 of these birds was encountered in the little patch 

 of level sand which separates the boulevard from the beach proper. 

 And a more matured judgment sees no reason for change, save that the 

 declaration would apply more strictly to a baby Snowy Plover. De- 

 cember, however, is not the moon of babies, and the visitor may be thank- 

 ful for an intermediate stage leading up to this crowning wonder of the 

 fruitful sands. 



The Snowy Plover is part and parcel of the sand. His clothes assimi- 

 late its hue so perfectly that a crouching bird may be invisible from shore; 

 and if a moving bird is glimpsed as he patters from the shelter of a foot- 

 print, one will hardly guess, at first, that a score of his fellows are also 

 moving. Nor is a sitting bird's breast any such landmark as one might 

 suppose, for the white breast might be a clam-shell, one of a thousand, and 

 the interrupted black bar of the chest, — what is that but a broken piece of 

 charcoal tossed up by the tide ! Anyhow, the dainty birds trust to their 

 protective coloration quite implicitly, and it is not till you are approaching 

 the edge of a given area and the birds begin to break from cover to run 

 trippingly down the steep tide slope, or to flit with little cries of dismay, 

 that you suspect the havoc of inconvenience you have wrought. 



The sand, the sheltering sand, the glorious, sun-warmed sand, the 

 sparkling, rustling, million-sided sand, why should it not be paradise 

 enough for a little piper! On sand was he cradled, and sand it was which 

 gave his tottering baby foot a soft embrace. Sand is his wet nurse and his 



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