216 
WILSON’S PLOVEE. 
Wilson’s Plover begins to lay its eggs about the time when the young of 
the Piping Plover are running after their parents. Twenty or thirty yards 
from the uppermost beat of the waves, on the first of June, or some day not 
distant from it, the female may be seen scratching a small cavity in the shelly 
sand, in which she deposits four eggs, placing them carefully with the broad 
end outermost. The eggs, which measure an inch and a quarter by seven 
and a half eighths, are of a dull cream colour, sparingly sprinkled all over 
with dots of pale purple and spots of dark brown. The eggs vary somewhat 
in size, and in their ground colour, but less than those of many other 
species of the genus. The young follow their parents as soon as they are 
hatched, and the latter employ every artifice common to birds of this family, 
to entice their enemies to follow them, and thus save their offspring. 
The flight of this species is rapid, elegant, and protracted. While travel- 
ling from one sand-beach or island to another, they fly low over the land or 
water, emitting a fine clear soft note. Now and then, when after the breed- 
ing season they form into flocks of twenty or thirty, they perform various 
evolutions in the air, cutting backwards and forwards, as if inspecting the 
spot on which they wish to alight, and then suddenly descend, sometimes on 
the sea-beach, and sometimes on the more elevated sands at a little distance 
from it. They do not run so nimbly as the Piping Plovers, nor are they 
nearly so shy. I have in fact frequently walked up so as to be within ten 
yards or so of them. They seldom mix with other species, and they show 
a decided preference to solitary uninhabited spots. 
Their food consists principally of small marine insects, minute shell-fish, 
and sand-worms, with which they mix particles of sand. Towards autumn 
they become almost silent, and being then very plump, afford delicious eat- 
ing. They feed fully as much by night as by day, and the large eyes of this 
as of other species of the genus, seem to fit them for nocturnal searchings. 
The young birds assemble together, and spend the winter months apart 
from the old ones, which are easily recognised by their lighter tints. While 
in the Floridas, near St. Augustine, in the months of December and Janu- 
ary, I found th.’s species much more abundant than any other ; and there 
were few of the Keys that had a sandy beach, or a rocky shore, on which 
one or more pairs were not observed. 
Wilson’s Plover, Charadrius Wilsonius, Ord. Amer. Orn., vol. ix. p. 77. 
Charadrius Wilsonius, Bonap. Syn., p. 296. 
Wilson’s Plover, Nutt. Man., vol. ii. p. 21. 
Wilson’s Plover, Charadrius Wilsonius, And. Orn. Biog., vol. iii. p. 73; vol. v. p. 577. 
Male, 7 r V, 14i 
Common, and breeds from Texas along the coast to Long Island. Resi* 
dent in the Southern States. 
