FOREST AND STREAM 
237 
resistless attraction in the way of plump grass¬ 
hoppers and coleopterous winged things of a hun¬ 
dred varieties, in addition to the kernels of wheat 
and other small farinaceous grain and the ver¬ 
micular tid-bits of the broken sod. The male birds 
come down first in mid-July, but they are shortly 
joined by the year’s biood, and then the mother 
birds, and then, altogether, they scatter over our 
fields, and gorge themselves with the goodies 
that lay everywhere spread out before them. By 
the first week in August the upland plover, which 
confines itself more particularly to grasshoppers, 
becomes so fat that in many instances they are 
really unfit for the table. They take on rolls and 
rolls of it in a way beyond parallel, frequently 
becoming so heavy that it is difficult for them to 
take wing, and they will fall all over themselves 
like a chubby infant just learning to walk, in run¬ 
ning away from you to avoid being forced to 
take wing. The fact is, the Nebraska upland 
plover, after a three weeks’ feed on our hay fields 
and pastures, becomes the fattest bird that flies. 
No other bird compares with it in this respect. 
Sometimes, quite frequently at that, a plover, shot 
in the air, will burst open at the craw when it 
hits the earth. The skin of the bird is extremely 
delicate, and the really immense rolls of fat it 
takes on distends and stretches to such an ex¬ 
tent that it breaks open in divers places, even 
from a fall of twenty feet or less. The upland 
plover has an inordinate appetite, and all through 
these long summer days does little else than stuff 
his hide from early morning till late in the 
gloaming. On really hot days they resort to the 
thin shade of the golden-rod or ragweed along 
about i o’clock, and indulge in a siesta of an 
hour or so, when they once more rise on their 
long slate-colored shanks, stretch their pointed 
wings, and, with a tur-wheetle or two, once more 
resume their quest of the festive and juicy grass¬ 
hopper. 
While the upland plover, which is a sandpiper 
and not a plover at all, as I should have remarked 
in the outset, is a migratory bird, it is not nearly 
so much so as the golden or ring-necked plover, 
the latter of which is known here strictly as the 
killdeer.. It nests very extensively in the Da¬ 
kotas, and often as far south as the first northern 
tier of counties in Nebraska, but rarely below this 
line. Its principal breeding grounds, notwith¬ 
standing, lie within the boundaries of the far 
north, the real cradle of all bird life. 
With the burning days of July the old cocks 
begin to work gulfward, leaving the cooling north 
at a time when the young birds first show strength 
of pinion sufficient to carry them upon long jour¬ 
neys. In the old days in this state, when there 
was no law upon the killing of prairie chicken, 
the upland plover was almost wholly unnoticed, 
and the gunners of a quarter of a century ago 
knew little about the bird compared with the 
knowledge that is possessed by the modern in¬ 
vader of our summer fields. Yet, in the old days, 
I have many a time known the chicken shooter, 
after an arduous hour or two after the grouse, 
to halt and take a shot at one of the wisps 
of gray as it winnowed against the August sky 
above him, but as a general thing they permitted 
the little aerial prima donna to wing on his joy¬ 
ous way unmolested. 
The most successful way of hunting this hand¬ 
some sandpiper, or used to be, anyway, here¬ 
abouts, is from a light spring wagon. The pursuit 
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of the flitting, elusive and wary little beautvbird will frequently lead you a long chase, and a 
afoot is apt to become too laborious for ordinary 
endurance, as they are apt to lead you for miles 
and miles across country, just managing to flush 
and keep out of range, of even one of those long- 
killing Peters’ shells. 
It is different in a wagon. You go out with 
one or two congenial tellows, with a driver who 
knows the country, and do your shooting from 
your seat, or, when close enough, you can jump 
out and secure the satisfaction of a better shot 
from your feet. About now these birds are to be 
found in large numbets on our open flat pastures 
and hay fields, as well as from those newly 
broken. I have seen these birds many a time, out 
in Fillmore and Merrick counties, mingling with 
the blackbirds and grackles, following along be¬ 
hind the husbandman and garnering luscious ban¬ 
quets in the rich furrows left by the plow share. 
Still they greatly prefer the pasture lands, in¬ 
fested with grasshoppers, and where the scattered 
clumps of rayweed, mullin and golden-rod offer, 
at least, scant shade in the middle of the day, and 
where, at night, they squat at roost, sheltered 
from the dew. 
If your driver is up to snuff, when you dis¬ 
cern the feeding birds on pasture land or meadow, 
he will drive you toward them cat-a-cornered, as 
if they had not been noticed, and intended to 
pass them -by, but at the same time getting in as 
close to the unsuspecting birds as possible, and 
then if he has a good, safe, gun-proof team, you 
can, when you get within satisfactory range, take 
turns about shooting from your seats in the 
wagon, or if there are several birds feeding near 
each other, all jump to th°e ground and take a 
crack at the flushing birds together. 
When the plover are plentiful the first 'fusilade 
of this kind often flushes every bird on the field, 
although many of them may be hundreds of yards 
apart, and on such occasions, as each bird rises 
separately and takes his own individual course, 
the air is soon filled with aimlessly flying, plain¬ 
tively tinkling pipers, and you get fine cross¬ 
shooting by remaining stationary where you are. 
While the bird is wary and deliberate, he evinces 
little more sense or caution when roused from 
his feet, with numbers of his companions, than a 
young blue-wing teal, which is about as dumb and 
as big a dunce as any bird that flies. They will 
fly back and forth over the field from which 
you have jumped them before making up their 
minds to again come down, or make off for other 
fields, until you often collect a fair bag without 
walking a dozen paces. 
There is no call for a dog in any sort of hunt¬ 
ing for upland plover, although a wing-tipped 
good retriever might sometimes save you many 
a weary step. But the habits of the bird are 
such that it is inadvisable to cumber yourself 
with the faithful old setter or pointer. They 
frequent the open fields, and are most always 
within easy vision, but will no more lie to a dog 
than they will to a man on foot. Like the golden 
plover, they never seek cover to escape threaten¬ 
ing danger. Their only defense is in flight. Gen¬ 
erally, when flushed by your wagons, they fly but 
a few hundred yards, when they again settle 
down as if utterly ignorant of the peril they just 
escaped. In a majority of cases you are pretty 
sure of bringing to bag almost every bird you 
see. When on foot and flushed, the birds will 
more often than otherwise rise high in the air, 
and after a circle or two strike off for fields too 
distant to encourage pursuit. When disturbed by 
a wagon, whether shot or not, they seldom leave 
the field in which you find them until they have 
been repeatedly set awing. 
In the old days the upland plover was, out this 
way, universally known as the prairie pigeon, but 
in these times of advanced knowledge that name 
is rarely used, and the bird is known almost 
everywhere by his proper cognomen. It breeds in 
the high and dry hay fields, generally laying four 
eggs, which are of a rich cream hue, speckled 
with shadowy brown. 
The plover shooting was excellent within a 
couple of hours’ buggy ride of this city, no longer 
than a half dozen years ago, and many birds still 
drop down to-day, on our suburban meadows and 
plowed fields, for at least a brief visit, while, say 
seventy-five or a hundred miles away, "the shoot¬ 
ing is still unsurpassed. There were more up¬ 
land plover come down to Nebraska grounds last 
July than I have ever known since I came to the 
state thirty years ago. 
Well do I remember the day I spent out on Joe 
Reeves’ West Millard road farm, not more than 
a half dozen years ago. 
It was a beautiful day, with a temperature just 
right for outdoor exercise, and Ray Welch and 
I drove out to Joe’s big farm, west of Mil¬ 
lard, for a whack at the young doyes. As al¬ 
ready mentioned, the day was an unusually beau¬ 
tiful one in every way for this time of year, and 
Ray and I would have had a good time had we 
not seen a feather. 
It has become so with me, as it has with hun¬ 
dreds of other real sportsmen, at last, after years 
and years of excitement in . the field, during 
which I have killed almost everything, furred, 
finned and feathered, that comes under the head 
of game from deer in Maine and the Adirondacks, 
