208 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



Regent inlet. (Arct. Man.) This species was observed on August 

 15th, 1886, near a shallow lake, about iioo feet above sea level; 

 a nest and eggs were found near Godhavn, Greenland, on June 



14th, 1880. (Hagerup.) 



276. Little Ring Plover. 



ALgialitis dubia (Scop.) Swinh. 1871. 

 Accidental on the coast of Alaska. {A.O.U. List.) 



277. Piping Plover. 



j-Egialitis meloda (Ord) Bonap. 1838. 



This species, besides being a migrant, breeds in suitable places 

 in nearly all the eastern provinces. It was found breeding by 

 Downs at Port Petpiswick, Nova Scotia, by Tufts on Seal island, 

 Yarmouth county, N.S. ; by Bishop, near high water-mark on the 

 Magdalen islands; and by W. Saunders on Pelee point. Lake Erie. 

 It is not a widely distributed species and seems to prefer the sea 

 coast. Mr. Saunders writes that while there is no doubt that this 

 bird formerly was found at Point Pelee and Rondeau, Lake Erie 

 its place has now been taken there by the belted piping plover, and 

 at Toronto, according to Mr. Fleming, all the specimens in local 

 collections taken before 1894 are referrable to meloda ; the first record 

 of circumcincta was in 1891, and all recent records belong to this form- 



Breeding Notes. — A very noisy species that is quite abundant 

 at the Magdalen islands, where I found four nests in 1897, but I 

 have not observed it in Ontario. It is an interesting bird running 

 along the sandy beach at a great speed and stopping now and again 

 to utter its shrill note. Being so much lighter in colour it is at 

 once distinguished from ^. semipalmata, as well as by its note- 

 The first nest I found was on the i6th of June. It was on one of 

 the sandy bars of Grindstone island. The nest consisted of a little 

 hole scooped out on a small hummock of sand, and was tesselated 

 as it ^ere with broken pieces of clam shells, after the manner of 

 the ring plover of Great Britain. No grass or bits of bark are used 

 as with jE. semipalmata. The other nests were identical, the eggs 

 being fresh in the second week in June. (Rev. C. J. Young.) In 

 the latter part of June, 1888, the writer found three nests of this 



