GOLDEN PLOVER. 95 



Male.— The Golden Plover is one of the most beautiful 

 and probably the best known species of its family. In size 

 it is inferior to the Lapwing, which it resembles in form, its 

 body being ovate and rather full, its head of moderate size, 

 oblong, somewhat compressed, the forehead rounded. The 

 bill is shorter than the head, straight, compressed ; the upper 

 mandible with the dorsal line straight and slightly decimate 

 for two-thirds of its length, then convex, the sides sloping at 

 the base, convex toAvards the end, the edges soft and in- 

 clinate, the tip narrow and rather blunt ; the lower mandible 

 with the angle narrow, the dorsal line ascending and slightly 

 convex, the tip rather acute. The nasal groove is bare, and 

 extends along two-thirds of the length of the mandible. 



The nostrils are linear, pervious, sub-basal, three-twelfths 

 of an inch long. The eyes are large, their aperture four- 

 and a-half-twelfths in diameter. That of the ear of moderate 

 size, being three-twelfths across. The feet are of moderate 

 length, slender ; the tibia bare for about half-an-inch ; the 

 tarsus of moderate length, rather compressed, covered all 

 round with hexagonal scales ; the inner toe considerably 

 shorter than the outer, with eighteen scutella ; the middle 

 toe with twenty-five; the outer with twenty. The claws are 

 small, slightly arched, compressed, slender, obtuse. 



The plumage is soft, blended, slightly glossed ; the 

 feathers generally oblong and obtuse. The wings are long 

 and pointed ; the quills twenty- six ; the primaries tapering, 

 the first longest, the second a little shorter, the rest rapidly 

 graduated ; the outer secondaries are short, broad, obliquely 

 rounded, and inflected, the inner elongated and tapering. 

 The tail is rather short, and slightly rounded. 



The bill is black ; the iris brown ; the feet bluish-grey. 

 The upper parts are brownish-black, variegated with very 

 numerous yellow spots arranged along the margins of the 

 feathers. The upper tail-coverts are barred with brown and 

 yellow; the tail-feathers greyish-brown, barred with yellowish- 

 white, the inner webs of the four lateral but faintly barred. 

 The wings are chocolate-brown, the smaller coverts, secon- 

 dary coverts, and inner secondaries spotted like the back ; 

 the primary coverts, primaries and outer secondaries plain, 



