Rhode Island has long been one of their favorite resorts, but has been overrun with gunners, who follow the vocation either for sport or pleasure, and there, for many years, the grey plover were killed in considerable quantities. Many are still found in the same locality, or further east, as well as at Montauk Point; but at Hempstead Plains, where they were once found quite numerous, they appear no longer; and the eastern shore of New Jersey being unsuited to their habits, they rarely sojourn or even pause upon it. They travel as well by night as by day; and in the still summer nights their sweet trilling cry may be heard at short intervals; while during the day they will often be seen in small bodies, or singly, winging their way rapidly towards the south.
They are wary, fly rapidly, and are difficult to shoot, and, were it not for one peculiarity, would escape almost scatheless. Alighting only in the open fields, where the thin grass reveals every enemy and exposes every approaching object to their view; readily alarmed at the first symptom of danger, and shunning the slightest familiarity with man, they are impossible to reach except with laborious and painful creeping that no sportsman cares to undertake. Not sufficiently gregarious or friendly in their nature to desire the company of wooden decoys, they cannot be lured within gunshot; and it is only through their confidence in their fellow-beasts that their destruction can be accomplished.
A horse, they know, has no evil design, does not live on plover, and may be permitted to come and go as he pleases; a horse drawing a wagon is to be pitied, not feared; and, most fortunately, the birds cannot conceive that a man would be mean enough to hide in that wagon, and drive that horse in an ingenious manner round and round them, every time narrowing the circle till he gets within shot. Man, however, is ready for any subterfuge to gain his plover; and, seated on the tail-board, or a place behind prepared for the purpose, he steps to the ground the moment the wagon stops, and as the bird immediately rises, fires—being often compelled, in spite of his ingenuity, to take a long shot.
Even in this mode no large number of birds is killed, and by creeping or stalking few indeed are obtained. One inventive genius made an imitation cow of slats and canvas painted to represent the living animal, and, mounting it upon his shoulders, was often able to approach without detection; when near enough, or if the bird became alarmed, he cast off his false skin and used his fowling-piece. This was certainly an original and successful mode of modifying an idea derived from the times of ancient Troy.
This bird is so delicious and so highly prized by the epicure, that no pains are spared in its capture; it is by many superior judges regarded as the richest and most delicately flavored of the birds of America; while its timid and wary disposition renders it the most difficult to kill. It is, therefore, justly esteemed the richest prize of the sportsman and the gourmand, and holds as high a rank in the field as in the market.
It is not, properly speaking, a bay-bird; but as it is frequently shot from the stand when passing near the decoys, these few remarks concerning it are inserted. It is essentially an upland bird, although from the nature of its migration it passes along the coast and occasionally far out at sea.
“Specific Character.—Bill slender, rather longer than the head; tarsi one inch and seven-eighths; neck rather long, slender; axillars distinctly barred with black and greyish-white; upper parts dark brown, margined with yellowish-brown; fore-neck and fore part of the breast with arrow-shaped markings; rest of the lower parts yellowish-white. Adult with the bill slender, yellowish-green, dusky at the tip; upper part of the head dark brown, with a central yellowish-brown line, the feathers margined with the same color; hind part and sides of the neck yellowish-brown, streaked with dusky; fore part of the neck and breast paler, with pointed streaks of dusky; sides of the body barred with the same; rest of lower parts yellowish-white; lower wing-coverts white, barred with brownish-black; upper plumage dark-brown, margined with yellowish-brown, darker on the hind part of the back; primaries dark-brown; coverts the same color; inner webs of the primaries barred with white, more particularly on the first—the shaft of which is white; the rest brown, all tipped with white; secondaries more broadly tipped with the same; coverts and scapulars dark-brown, margined with yellowish-brown, and tipped with white; tail barred with black and yellowish-brown, tipped with white; middle feathers darker, tipped with black. Length ten inches and a half, wing six and five-eighths.”—Giraud.
Red-backed Sandpiper.
Winter Snipe.—Black-breast.
Tringà Alpina, Wils.