While the birds are concerned with the cares of brood-raising, which is usually towards the close of May or the beginning of June, they confine their feeding to the damp, wet sand. Between it and the dry a clear line of separation is plainly noticeable. It is only when they are ready for the home duties that they are seen to resort to aerial navigation. Even when on the very boundary-line of the two stretches of sand, the wet and the dry, and with the nest almost in sight, they are known to assume wing, taking due care, however, to alight before they have fairly reached the spot. In flight an advantage, that of a more commanding view, is acquired, which walking does not give. But in leaving the nest for food, or for any other purpose, they, as before, walk some distance away before they venture to fly. There is a seeming purpose in so doing, the object to be gained being the deceiving of man and other enemies as to the real location of the nest. [Illustration: FEMALE PIPING PLOVER. Nest in Midst of Broken Shells.] All these precautions are undertaken for the sake of the eggs, although in color and markings these so closely resemble the dry sand and intermingled bits of foreign substances, that such actions seem all unnecessary. When birds have been flushed from the nest, and its exact position has been noted with the greatest care, I have failed, after several minutes of the closest searching, to detect the eggs, so true has been the color-harmony between them and the surrounding sand. This resemblance in coloration must be seen to be fully appreciated. In ground the eggs are the palest possible creamy-brown, but marked all over, quite sparingly, with small blackish-brown dots and specks, the largest hardly exceeding a pin’s head. Four is the usual number, and these, from their peculiar pear-shaped form, are placed with their points together in the centre of the nest. They are objects of more than ordinary solicitude, the little Plovers making most violent demonstrations and pleading piteously when they are approached. The mother employs all the well-known artifices, such as lameness, inability to fly, to draw the intruder away from the nest. The young run as soon as they leave the egg, and are great adepts at hiding, squatting, and remaining motionless. Their downy plumage so assimilates them to the sand that unless they reveal themselves by moving, it requires a very keen eye to distinguish them from the numberless tufts that are scattered about the higher reaches of the beach.