GREY PLOVER. 93 



the rump whitish, the primary quills dusky, the outer edges 

 of the secondaries -whitish. When fledged, he says the bill 

 is greyish-black, the feet bluish-grey; the upper parts 

 brownish-black, spotted with white, some of the spots 

 yellow ; the wings and tail as in the adult, but the latter 

 tinged with grey, and having eight dark bars on all the 

 feathers ; the fore part and sides of the neck, and the sides 

 of the body, greyish-white, mottled with brownish-grey ; 

 the axillary feathers brownish-black ; the rest of the lower 

 parts white. 



Remarks. — By more recent writers this bird is variously 

 named Squatarola cinerea, Squatarola grisea, Vanellus mela- 

 nogaster, and Vanellus griseus. But Squatarola, being a 

 barbarous name, is scarcely admissible. Moreover the bird 

 is a Plover, in despite of its rudimentary hind toe. As to 

 Vanellus, it can be referred to that genus only by those who 

 consider a hind toe as its most essential characteristic, and 

 overlook the reticulation of the tarsus, and the different form 

 of the wing. In naming it Pluvialis Squatarola I have in- 

 vented nothing, the former being the old generic name 

 appplied to the group to which it belongs, and the latter 

 being the specific appellation used by Linnaeus and others. 

 Literally translated, Pluvialis is Plover, and thus the nomen- 

 clature is so far perfect. Is it not strange that they who 

 make it a Squatarola in mongrel Latin, should call it a 

 Plover in plain English, thus giving it the same generic 

 name that they apply to birds of what they tell us is quite a 

 different genus ? 



In another individual, a male, examined in Edinburgh, 

 in January, 1841, the measurement of the digestive organs 

 were as follows : — Tongue ten-twelfths long; oesophagus four 

 inches and a half; belt of glandules ten-twelfths; stomach 

 an inch and five-twelfths long, an inch and two-twelfths in 

 breadth ; intestine two feet eleven inches in length ; cceca 

 three inches and a quarter ; rectum two inches. The stomach 

 was moderately distended with slender blades of green ulvse, 

 among which were a few small • univalve shells and some 

 bits of quartz. 



