The Mountain Plover 



Distribution in California. — Not common spring and fall migrant and winter 

 resident, chiefly in the San Joaquin-Sacramento basin, with adjoining westerly valleys, 

 and in the southern district. Has been recorded on San Clemente Island. Also two 

 coastwise records from Santa Barbara: Oct. 19, 1912, and Aug. 25, 1915. 



Authorities. — Gambel (Charadrius montanus) , Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., ser. 

 2, i., 1849, p. 220 (coast of Calif.); Shufeldt, Jour. Anat. and Physiol., vol. xviii., 1883, 

 p. 86, pi. (osteology) ; Bradbury, Condor, vol. xx., 1918, p. 157, figs. (Colo.; nesting 

 habits; desc. and photos). 



PODASOCYS MONTANUS is no more to blame for the name he 

 bears than we are for our names, sur- and Christian. He was not con- 

 sulted at the christening. Podasocys isn't so bad, when we know that 

 it is a Homeric epithet meaning swift-as-to-his-feet, but montanus is a 

 sheer misnomer. The bird is a plainsman. In summer he dwells in 

 peace upon the prairies which stretch to the eastward of the Rocky 

 Mountains from New Mexico to the northern boundary of the States; 

 and according to all authorities there is no loneliest township in western 

 Kansas nor waterless desert in Wyoming which will not yield an all- 

 sufficient harvest of grasshoppers. As for drink, dew must suffice, as it 

 does for prairie dogs. 



Like many another prosperous farmer of the plains, our hero, when 

 he has accumulated a generous roll (of fat), comes to California to spend 

 the winters. True to his prairie-born instincts, he avoids both the 

 mountains and the shores, and seeks out the level barrens of the interior. 

 Here, it must be confessed, he and his friends have oftenest fallen among 

 thieves. Their rolls have been taken from them without redress and only 

 a dwindling remnant has escaped, spring by spring, to the isolated security 

 of their summer home. For he is an easy mark, this plainsman, when he 

 patters confidingly over a Fresno pasture or the alkaline stretches of 

 Cholame. And he is easier still when he flies with his fellows in a huddled 

 company which crosses the gunner's bows on the coastal plains of Los 

 Angeles County. The Mountain Plover, once abundant, is now becoming 

 a downright rarity, and only the most scrupulous observance of the 

 governmental prohibition will save to us this most useful and interesting 

 species. 



Some impression of the bird's former abundance, as well as a lively 

 account of its habits in the South comes from the pen of Elliott Coues: 1 

 "In the desert region of New Mexico, between the Rio Grande and the 

 base of the mountains to the westward, I found these Plovers abundant, 

 late in June, together with the Long-billed Curlews, and presume that 

 they breed there, although I found no nests. The old birds that I shot 

 were in poor condition and worn plumage. A few were seen in Arizona, 

 at various seasons, but they did not again occur to me in abundance until 



1 "Birds of the Northwest" by Elliott Coues, 1874, p. 458. 

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