This species breeds in Louisiana about the beginning of April; in the Middle States a full month later, as well as in the Western Country and farther north. Not one, however, has ever been found breeding in the low lands of South Carolina, although these birds remain there until the beginning of May. The nests are various, some being merely a hollow scooped in the bare ground, while at other times the Kildee searches for a place on the edge of a pond, forms a hollow, and constructs a nest of grass, at the foot of a thick bunch of plants. Now and then small pebbles and fragments of shells are raised in the form of a rim around the eggs, on which the sitting bird is seen as if elevated two or three inches. Wilson saw nests of this kind; so have I; and the circumstance appeared as strange to me as that of the birds not breeding in the low lands of the Carolinas. The eggs are almost always four, pyriform, well pointed at the small end, an inch and five-eighths in length, an inch and one eighth in diameter at the broadest part, and of a deep cream colour, pretty generally marked all over with small irregular blotches of purplish-brown and black. The young, as soon as hatched, run about. At this period, or during incubation, the parents, who sit alternately on the eggs, never leaving them to the heat of the sun, are extremely clamorous at sight of an enemy. The female droops her wings, emits her plaintive notes, and endeavours by every means she can devise to draw you from the nest or young. The male dashes over you in the air, in the manner of the European Lapwing, and vociferates all the remonstrances of an angry parent whose family is endangered. If you cannot find pity for the poor birds at such a time, you may take up their eggs and see their distress; but if you be at all so tender-hearted as I would wish you to be, it will be quite unnecessary for me to recommend mercy!
Few Plovers with which I am acquainted, acquire their full plumage sooner than this species. Before December you can observe no difference between the young birds and their parents; nay by this time, like most other species, the former are as fully able to fly as at any other period.
While I was residing in Pennsylvania, the son of my tenant the miller was in the habit of catching newly-hatched birds of every sort, to bait his fish-hooks. I had rather peremptorily remonstrated against this barbarous practice, although, I believe, without effect. One morning I met him returning from the shores of the Perkioming Creek, with his hat full of young Kildees. He endeavoured to avoid me, but I made directly up to him, peeped into his hat and saw the birds. On this I begged of him to go back and restore the poor things to their parents, which he reluctantly did. Never had I felt more happy than I did when I saw the young Plovers run off and hide under cover of the stones.
The Kildee seems to be remarkably attached to certain localities at particular periods. Whilst at General Hernandez’s in East Florida, I accidentally wounded one near a barn on the plantation of my accomplished host. Yet it returned to the same spot for the ten days that I remained there, although it always flew off when I approached it.
The food of this species consists of earth-worms, grass-hoppers, crickets, and coleopterous insects, as well as small crustacea, whether of salt or fresh water, and snails. Now and then they may be seen thrusting their bills into the mud about oysters, in search of some other food. During autumn, they run about the old fields and catch an insect which the Blue Bird has been watching with anxious care from the top of a withering mullein stalk. They run briskly after the ploughman, to pick up the worms that have been turned out of their burrows. Now standing on the grassy meadow, after a shower, you see them patting the moist ground, to force out its inhabitants. During winter, you meet with them on elevated ground, or along the margins of the rivers; but wherever you observe one about to pick up its food, you clearly see its body moving in a see-saw manner on the joints of the legs, until the former being so placed that the bill can reach the ground, the object is seized, and the usual horizontal position is resumed.
The flesh of the Kildee is generally indifferent, unless in early autumn, when the young birds of that season are fat, juicy and tender. At all seasons of the year, the Kildee is however shot by inexperienced sportsmen, and many of these birds are offered for sale in our markets. Little difference is observed at any period in the plumage of the adult birds.
Charadrius vociferus, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 253.—Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. ii. p. 742.—Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of the United States, p. 297.—Swains. and Richards. Fauna Bor. Amer. part ii. p. 368.
Kildeer Plover, Charadrius vociferus, Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. vii. p. 73. pl. 59. fig. 6.—Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 22.
Adult Male in summer. Plate CCXXV. Fig. 1.
Bill shorter than the head, straight, somewhat cylindrical. Upper mandible with the dorsal line straight for two-thirds of its length, then bulging a little and curving to the tip, which is rather acute, the sides flat and sloping at the base, convex towards the end, where the edges are sharp and inclinate. Nasal groove extended along two-thirds of the mandible, filled with a bare membrane; nostrils basal, linear, in the lower part of the membrane, open, and pervious. Lower mandible with the angle long, narrow, but rounded, the sides at the base sloping outwards and flat, the dorsal line ascending and slightly convex, the edges sharp and involute towards the narrow tip.