NON-INDIGENOUS BRITISH BIRDS. 235 



Breeding habits : The Asiatic Golden Plover is a 

 migrant, and was observed to pass uj3 the valley of the 

 Yenesay to its breeding grounds in Siberia, during the 

 first week in June, and doubtless reaches its summer 

 haunts a week later. In winter and on migration it is 

 gregarious, but our information of its habits during 

 the breeding season is so meagre that we cannot say 

 more than that it is to a certain extent social in summer, 

 apparently nesting locally in scattered pairs over the 

 ground. It probably pairs in spring, like its allies. 

 The breeding haunts of this Plover are the tundras 

 beyond the limits of the forests, where the ground is 

 clothed more with moss and lichen than with grass, 

 studded with patches of bare pebbly ground, and the 

 dead flat relieved by hummocky plains. In such a 

 locality the nest and eggs of the Asiatic Golden Plover 

 were discovered by Mr. Seebohm during his visit to 

 Siberia in the summer of 1877. On the 14th of July 

 he observed a pair of these Plovers, and after much 

 fruitless watching, one of them, the male, was shot. 

 The nest was found shortly afterwards, amongst the 

 moss and lichen, containing the full complement of eggs. 

 It was merely a slight hollow lined with broken stalks 

 of reindeer-moss. A week later the same naturalist 

 found this Plover very common on the tundra at Gol- 

 cheeka, and succeeded in obtaining the young in down. 

 So far as I am aware these eggs are the only ones known 

 to science. The behaviour of the old birds at the nest 

 is very similar to that of allied species. 



Range of egg colouration and measurement : 

 The eggs of the Asiatic Golden Plover are four in 

 number. They are precisely similar to those of the 

 Golden Plover, in colour and character of markings, 

 varying in ground colour from light buff to very pale 

 buff with a tinge of olive, blotched and spotted with 



