. Feathered game of the Northeast . w England rather laterin the spring than do the beetleheads, and re-turn to warm latitudes earlier. They nest inthe Arctic regions, as do most of the shorebirds, which gives us very little opportunity forobserving their breeding habits. The wintermonths are passed in the Southern States andbeyond to the southward. Many are found atthis season on the grassy plains which make thecattle ranges of Texas and northern Mexico,and some even go to the extreme southern partof South America, so that their range is a wideone. The family is represented in Europe andAsia,
. Feathered game of the Northeast . w England rather laterin the spring than do the beetleheads, and re-turn to warm latitudes earlier. They nest inthe Arctic regions, as do most of the shorebirds, which gives us very little opportunity forobserving their breeding habits. The wintermonths are passed in the Southern States andbeyond to the southward. Many are found atthis season on the grassy plains which make thecattle ranges of Texas and northern Mexico,and some even go to the extreme southern partof South America, so that their range is a wideone. The family is represented in Europe andAsia, also, the Old World bird varying but lit-tle from our own. Only an expert could dis-tinguish one from the other, and he not always. Most writers claim that this bird is muchmore common in New England than is the bee-tlehead. While this may be so, my own ex-perience has been to the contrary, and I thinkthat most gunners on the coast of Maine willtake my view of it. I think I have seen inone great flock during the spring flight more. THE A^IERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER 81 beetleheads than I have seen of Goldens in allmy life. The Golden Plover feeds in the fields andhighland pastures, haunting much the sameground as the upland plover, living upon slugs,beetles, earthworms and grasshoppers, norpassing by the sweet berries of the fields. In theWest they tell us stories of these birds follow-ing the plow when the farmer turns up the soilof the prairies, and of their coming so closethat the ploughman knocks them over with hiswhip as they curl and wheel about his sounds like a—well, a fairy tale, to theeastern gunner, at any rate most of our sports-men are satisfied to hunt Golden Plovers witha hard-hitting, close-shooting shotgun. During the migration fair shooting is some-times to be had at Goldens in our island fields,when the gunner, putting out decoys and be-ing well hidden, calls the passing flocks. Theyrarely refuse to come to these false friends,not once only but even ret
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