Plover Shooting.—There is, in shooting plovers, a common remark made by sportsmen that the second is always the more productive barrel. The rapidity with which they vary their position when on the ground, seldom admits of a grand combination for a sitting, or rather a running-shot. But when on the wing, their mode of flight is most favourable for permitting the shot to tell; and it is by no means unusual to bring down a number. When disturbed, they frequently wheel back directly above the fowler, and offer a tempting mark if he should have a barrel in reserve; and even when too high for the shot to take effect, I have often thrown away a random fire; for the plovers, on hearing the report, directly make a sweep downwards on the wing, and I have by this means brought them within range of the second barrel.
Golden plovers were formerly killed in great plenty by means of a stalking-horse. If you fire at these birds as they fly over you, they will dart down for the moment, and spread in every direction; so that by taking a random shot with your first barrel, you may often bring down the birds to a fair one for your second.—Bewick.
Pluck, v. To pull with nimbleness or force; to snatch, to pull, to draw; to strip off feathers.
Pluck, s. A pull, a draw, a single act of plucking; the heart, liver, and lights of an animal.
Plumage, s. Feathers, suit of feathers.
I believe that no attention has been paid to the effects of different kinds of food on the colours of birds. The linnet and redpole, in confinement, lose, after the first moult, their red colour, and it does not return. Is this owing to the want of the peculiar food they would take in the spring, if at liberty, or to their being less exposed to the sunshine? I once saw the English white water-lily blow of a pale rose colour, after a week of unusual heat in July. Birds that change their colours at different seasons, always put on their bright garb in the warm season. I have repeatedly observed, in a splendid nondescript finch which I possess, that, although it moults partially twice in the year, the colour of the larger feathers on the wings and back changes gradually from yellowish brown to scarlet, and fades again at the approach of winter. In this bird, the change to grey red is very clearly occasioned by the increase of temperature. I have observed, in the spring, that the supervention of cold weather stops its progress. In the Whidah bird, the mutation of dress is rapid, accompanying the moult in June and July. The American blue bird pushes brown feathers in its summer moult, which are very suddenly turned to blue. There is a mystery in these mutations which we do not understand.
It is not easy to account for the variation we sometimes perceive in the plumage of birds of the same species. I have observed a rook with one white wing, during the last three years, in the rookery in Hampton Court park; and I saw a sparrow nearly white, amongst a flock of those birds, at West Molesey. A linnet was shot and brought to me from the same place, which was beautifully mottled with white and brown. Some years ago I was shown some white blackbirds, in the grounds of a nobleman at Blackheath, which had been bred there; and what showed this was not an accidental circumstance, they produced young of the same colour as themselves.—White of Selborne—Jesse.