Sportsmen know of many other plovers, such as the golden, the ringneck, the killdee, or killdeer, and several more, both American and foreign.
The Curlew
This is another plains-bird common to both continents, which may often be noticed on moors or in marshes during the summer, or on the sea-coast in the winter. But generally one only sees it in the distance, for it is extremely wary, and takes to flight at the very slightest alarm.
All through the winter months curlews live in flocks, and one may hear them uttering their mournful cries in chorus together. But early in the spring they separate, and each pair selects some little hollow in the ground which may serve as a nest. In this they lay four pear-shaped eggs, which are olive green in color, spotted with gray and brown. When the eggs are hatched the parents take the greatest care of their little ones, and often if any one comes too near the nest they will fly round and round his head in the most excited manner, and do their very best to drive him away.
In color the curlew is pale brown above, with darker spots and streaks, and grayish white beneath. Its total length is about twenty-four inches, and the beak is long and slender, with a downward curve.
Ruffs
The ruff, a relative of the curlew, is remarkable for three reasons. In the first place, during the breeding-season, the male bird has a great frill or ruff of long feathers round his neck, which he can raise and lower at will. In the next place, two male ruffs are never colored alike, while sometimes they look so wholly different that it is quite hard to believe that they can really belong to the same species. And, in the third place, they are so dreadfully quarrelsome when the nesting-season begins, that two male ruffs can never meet without fighting. More than that, they actually have regular fighting-places, to which numbers of the birds resort when they want to settle their quarrels! But although they fight very savagely, they never seem to do each other much harm.
Ruffs are hardly known in America, except in Alaska, but at one time they were very common in the marshy parts of England.
The Woodcock
The woodcock is a bird of wooded swamps. It is valued by sportsmen, because difficult to shoot and delicate to eat. They lay their eggs in a hollow in the ground, which they line with dry grass and leaves. When the mother bird is sitting it is almost impossible to see her, for she nearly always nests among dead ferns, which are of exactly the same hues as her own plumage. Generally, indeed, it is her eyes that are noticed, and if she only had the sense to keep them shut she would probably never be detected at all.