KILDEER PLOVER. 
367 
general esteem ; though others say, that, in the fall, when 
they become very fat, it is excellent. 
During the extreme droughts of summer, these birds resort 
to the gravelly channel of brooks and shallow streams, where 
they can wade about in search of aquatic insects : at the close 
of summer, they generally descend to the sea shore, in small 
flocks, seldom more than ten or twelve being seen together. 
They are then more serene and silent, as well as difficult to 
be approached. 
The Kildeer is ten inches long, and twenty inches in 
extent ; the bill is black ; frontlet, chin, and ring round the 
neck, white ; fore part of the crown and auriculars, from the 
bill backwards, blackish olive ; eyelids, bright scarlet ; eye, 
very large, and of a full black ; from the centre of the eye 
backwards, a strip of white ; round the lower part of the neck 
is a broad band of black; below that, a band of white, 
succeeded by another rounding band or crescent of black ; 
rest of the lower parts, pure white ; crown and hind head, 
light olive brown ; back, scapulars, and wing-coverts, olive 
brown, skirted with brownish yellow; primary quills, black, 
streaked across the middle with white ; bastard wing, tipt with 
white ; greater coverts, broadly tipt with white ; rump and 
tail-coverts, orange ; tail, tapering, dull orange, crossed near 
the end with a broad bar of black, and tipt with orange, the 
two middle feathers near an inch longer than the adjoining 
ones ; legs and feet, a pale light clay colour. The tertials, as 
usual in this tribe, are very long, reaching nearly to the tips 
of the primaries ; exterior toe, joined by a membrane to the 
middle one, as far as the first joint. 
