92 
The Killdeer 
that are extremely destructive, such as grasshoppers, crickets, and beetles. 
Mr. E. H. Forbush, the learned State Ornithologist of Massachusetts, 
has made an excellent summary of the Killdeer's good offices, in one of 
his recent books : 
“As soon as the ice breaks up in the rivers and lakes the Killdeer’s 
cry is heard — the harbinger of spring. It makes its home on low-lying 
farms. It frequents meadows and cultivated lands, where it feeds on 
destructive insects and worms. If fully protected and 
^Friendly left unmolested in its occupancy of the fields it becomes 
as common a feature of the country home as is the 
Lapwing in England. So far as its food-habits are now known it seems 
to be utterly harmless and very beneficial — a beautiful and desirable bird 
to protect and cultivate. . . . 
“Prof. Samuel Aughey examined the stomach-contents of nine of 
these birds taken from May to September in Nebraska, and found 258 
locusts and 190 other insects. Only one had taken grain, and of that only 
a few waste kernels. Nash states that (in Ontario) its food consists 
of earth-worms and insects, of which small beetles form the greater 
part, and that a brood of these birds and their parents will relieve a 
farm of an enormous number of insects daily. He has known stomachs 
of this species to be completely filled with weevils taken from orchards. 
Eaton found it feeding on grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars and a few 
water-insects. Throughout the country, wherever the Killdeer is found, 
it is very destructive to weevils, some species of which cost the farmers 
of the United States millions of dollars annually. The Killdeer takes 
weevils from plowed fields as well as from orchards, and it is one of the 
enemies of the Mexican cotton-boll weevil.” 
Mr. McAtee enumerates, in a Bulletin of the Biological Survey, a 
long list of beetles and other injurious insects known to be eaten by the 
Killdeer, especially those harmful to cotton-culture, and shows that such 
pests as crane-flies and their larvae, known as leather- 
j Destroys^ jackets, are eaten, as well as horseflies and mosquitoes 
nsect pests an q their larvae. “One stomach contained hundreds 
of larvae of the salt-marsh mosquito, which is one of the most trouble- 
some of the biting species.” 
Classification and Distribution 
The Killdeer belongs to the Order Limicola (shore-birds), and to the Family 
Charadriidce. Its scientific name is Oxyechus vociferus. The range of the species 
includes the most of both North and South America. It is found in summer and 
breeds throughout southern Canada, all of the United States, and north-central 
Mexico; and winters from the southwestern United States to Venezuela and Peru. 
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Audubon Societies, 1974 Broadway, New York City. Lists given on request. 
