The Black-bellied Plover 
Taken at Sandyland Photo by the Author 
GRAY PLOVERS 
a heavy blanket of fat, a traveler’s larder, which supplies the needful 
caloric consumed by the powerful pectoral muscles until the bird is safe 
within the tropics. These plovers respond to decoys, and may be “tolled” 
in by the easily imitated whistle. It is, however, one of the wariest of 
birds to eye, under persecution; and from the circumstance of its migrating 
chiefly along the sea-coast, where it is able to put out in case of danger, 
it has measurably escaped the doom which has overwhelmed many of 
our Shore-birds. 
1 'he economist finds nothing to condemn in the habits of the Beetle- 
head, and something to commend in that it feasts heavily upon grass¬ 
hoppers as often as it visits the uplands. It is with us, however, chiefly 
a beach bird and, according to Knight, its food “consists of small mollusks, 
worms, small crustaceans, brittle-stars, small holothuria, and similar 
material left by the ebbing tide, varied by more or less insects and larvae 
picked up in the marshes at high tide.” I have myself seen them seize 
pieces of kelp stranded upon the beach and thrash them about, apparently 
for the purpose ol dislodging clinging mollusks. At other times they will 
feed furtively, by little snatches and quick recoveries, as they retreat 
along the beach. 
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