The flight of this species is rapid, elegant, and protracted. While travelling 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 breeding 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 shew a decided preference to solitary uninhabited spots.
Their food consists principally of small marine insects, minute shellfish, and sandworms, with which they mix particles of sand. Towards autumn they become almost silent, and being then very plump, afford delicious eating. 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 January, I found this 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, Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. ix. p. 77. pl. 73. fig. 5.—Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 21.
Charadrius Wilsonius, Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of the United States, p. 296.
Adult Female. Plate CCIX. Fig. 2.
Bill as long as the head, stout, straight, cylindrical, obtuse, and somewhat turgid at the tip. Upper mandible with the dorsal line straight until towards the end, when it is slightly arched and declinate, the sides convex, the edges sharp and slightly inflected. Nasal groove extending to about half the length of the bill; nostrils lateral, linear, direct, in the lower part of the bare membrane. Lower mandible with the angle rounded, the dorsal line convex and ascending, the back broad, the sides convex, the edges inflected.
Head large, a little compressed, the forehead prominent; eyes large. Neck short. Body rather full. Wings long. Legs rather long, slender; tibia bare a little above the joint; tarsus of ordinary length, somewhat compressed, covered with angular scales; toes small and slender, covered above with numerous small scutella, first toe wanting, fourth longer than second, third longest, the two outer connected at the base by a pretty large web; claws small, slightly arched, much compressed, obtuse.
Plumage soft and rather blended. Wings long, narrow, primaries nearly straight, narrow and tapering, the first longest, second a little shorter, the rest rapidly graduated; outer secondaries very short, inner elongated so as to extend as far as the second primary. Tail of moderate length, straight, rounded, of twelve feathers.
Bill black. Edges of eyelids grey; iris reddish-brown. Feet light flesh-coloured; claws dusky. The general colour of the plumage above is light brownish-grey. Lower part of forehead and a broad streak over the eyes white; throat white, that colour extending narrow behind so as to form a collar, below which is another of the general tint of the back across the fore neck. The rest of the lower parts white. Quills and tail of a deeper greyish-brown, the shafts white, the two lateral tail-feathers whitish.