.v£srs .'[A'D i^cas of avstkalian birds. 787 



and seasonal changes the Grey Plover scarcely differs from the Gokleu 

 Plover, and the yellow colour of the yoiuig in down, as well as of the 

 young in first plumage, proves its near relationship to the latter bird. 



Althougli the Grey Plover was known to ornithologists as far back 

 a*, 1758, it was not till the 'I'lwA of June, 1875, that .Seebohm and Harvic- 

 Brown took the first authenticated nest in the valley of the Lower 

 Petehora, Russia. They record : — " We had not walked very far before 

 other Plovei-s rose, and we determined to commence a diligent search 



for a nest After more than an hoiu-'s search we found 



a nest on one of the di-y tussocky ridges intersecting the bog, containing 

 four eggs about the size and shape of the Golden Plover's. Tlie nest 

 w;is a hollow, evidently scratched perfectly round, somewhat deep, and 

 containing a handful of broken slender twigs and reindeer moss. Hai-vie- 

 Brown concealed himself as well as he could behind a ridge to lie in 

 wait for the bird retiuning to the nest, and after half an hour's watching 

 shot a veritable Grey Plover." 



Confinning Seebohm's accoimt of the nesting home of the Grey 

 Plover, Mr. H. J. Peai-son, who visited Russian Lapland twenty years 

 afterwards, pleasantly writes in the " Ibis," April. 1896 : " The discovery 

 of these eggs has been so well described by Seebohm and Harvie-Brown, 

 in their paper in the ' Ibis,' that we have little to add. We feel svu-e, 

 however, that our brother ornithologists will sympathize with our glow 

 of pleasure and even our wild war-dance on finding oiu' first nest, con- 

 taining a clutch of four beautiful eggs. And, indeed, both glow and 

 dance wore needed, for few things are more calculated to chill enthusiasm 

 and unpleasantly lower one's temperature than watching for fifty minutes, 

 in a piercing wind and sleet, even a Grey Plover to its nest. We took, 

 in all, seven clutches of eggs (4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1, and 3 respectively). Tlie 

 first two were fairly fresh. In the third and foiu-th the chicks were 

 calling, and their beaks partly through the shell. The fifth contained 

 yoiuig in down and not quite so advanced. The one egg in the sixth 

 was nearly hatched, and three young birds from the other eggs were 

 caught about the nest. In the seventh two eggs were addled, one nearly 

 hatched, and one young in down, caught near. The positions of the 

 nests were interesting : only two were on the lower groimd near the 

 Gobista ; one was a mile both from the sea and the river ; all the other's — 

 also several old nests — were on the tundra, not far from the edge of the 

 bluff's, which fonn the margin of the river basin. Grey Plovers seem 

 to prefer this position, which gives them good posts of observation and 

 allows them to take their young easily into the marshes below to feed. 

 We found a ready way of locating the nest of this bird was to watch a 

 pair of Richardson's Skuas hunting over the tundra, for as soon as they 

 approached the nest cf the Plovers, both the latter rose in the air and 

 drove the Skuas away. We never observed these birds breeding near 

 each other, each pair appearing to take possession of about a mile of 

 country. All tlie nests were slight depressions in the peat, lined with 

 a little hchen." 



It is stated that Von Middendorff' was actually the first naturalist 

 to take the eggs of the Grey Plover. He foimd them in Northern 

 Siberia, but published no details concerning the circumstance. 



