542 LITTLE RINGED PLOVER. 



abundantly in Poland and Germany, though less plentifully in Den- 

 mark, Holland, Belgium, and Northern France. It does not affect 

 the open sea-coast, preferring expanses of sandy soil by inland lakes 

 and on rivers, and these it finds in some parts of France, the Spanish 

 Peninsula (up to an elevation of 4,000 ft. in the Pyrenees), Italy, 

 the south of Europe generally, and Northern Africa. In Asia it 

 nests across Siberia to the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as in Japan, 

 China, and in Turkestan up to an altitude of 4,000 feet ; it visits 

 India as far south as Ceylon during the cold season, and even 

 reaches the Moluccas and New Guinea. In Africa it has been 

 recorded from Mozambique on the east and the Gaboon on the 

 west. 



The usual breeding-places of this bird are sandy islets and strips 

 of waste land overgrown with coarse wiry grass, on the margins of 

 rivers ; also the dried-up beds of winter-torrents and elevated stony 

 plains. Incubation seldom begins before the latter half of May, 

 when the eggs, 4 in number, are laid in a slight hollow ; their colour 

 is pale stone-buff, with minute dark brown spots and streaks, very 

 different from the bolder markings prevalent in the preceding 

 species : measurements i'i5 by "85 in. The usual note is rendered 

 by Naumann as did or deli ; but the love-call, chiefly uttered by the 

 male when on the wing, is a more prolonged trill. The food con- 

 sists of water-beetles and other insects, in search of which the bird 

 has been observed to turn over small stones. 



The adult Little Ringed Plover is smaller in size, slenderer in 

 form, and one-fourth less in weight than ,£". hiaticola ; the shafts of 

 the primaries are all dusky, except the outer one which is white 

 (whereas in the larger species there are on the shafts flecks of white 

 which form a conspicuous bar when the wing is extended) ; the 

 general colour of the upper parts is even paler in .^. curonica than 

 it is in Continental examples of the Ringed Plover. In spring the 

 eyelids are golden yellow, and the legs are of a pale ochre colour. 

 Length 6'5 in. ; wing 4-5 in. The young exhibit a more decidedly 

 sandy tint on the upper parts than do those of the Ringed Plover, 

 and the down of the nestling is more distinctly buff. 



