MONGOLIAN PLOVEE 253 



on the second syllable with the first and third almost inaudible at a distance 

 of 30 feet. The flight note is a purring whistle, suggestive of the rolling note 

 of the Carolina wren but pitched lower and not as strident. 



It was apparently common during the winter in Pinellas County, 

 Fla., frequenting the sandy islands and ocean beaches in the vicinity 

 of Tampa Bay ; but we found it difficult to separate it, in immature 

 and winter plumages, from young piping plover, unless we were 

 near enough to recognize its slender bill; the difference in size was 

 not noticeable except by direct comparison. I can find nothing in 

 its nesting habits or in its behavior in which it differs from the 

 Pacific snowy plover. I have not seen its eggs, but presume that they 

 are like those of the western form. 



CHARADRIUS MONGOL US MONGOLUS Pallas 

 MONGOLIAN PLOVER 



HABITS 



According to the Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain : 



This species is now known to be divided into two fairly distinguishable 

 subspecies, the typical race breeding in Mongolia, Kamchatka, and Eastern 

 Siberia as well as on the Commander Islands, and wintering from the Philip- 

 pines, Celebes, etc., to New Guinea and Australia. It is this form which has 

 occurred in Alaska. Charadrius mongolus aMfrons Wagler, the western race, 

 breeds from the Kirghis Steppes in South Russia to the Himalayas and Tibet, 

 wintering in East Africa, Madagascar, the Seychelles, India, Malacca, and the 

 Great Sunda Isles. 



Like several other Asiatic species, it occasionally wanders across 

 Bering Strait into extreme northwestern Alaska. Joseph Dixon 

 (1918) throws considerable doubt over the time-honored record of 

 specimens supposed to have been taken by Captain Moore of the 

 plover on the Choris Peninsula in the surmner of 1849; his reason- 

 ing, which seems to be sound, suggests that these specimens were 

 probably taken on the Siberian side. However, Alfred M. Bailey 

 (1926) collected a male of this species at Cape Prince of Wales on 

 June 11, 1922, of which he says : 



The tundra was still snow covered, only a small, sandy striij being bare along 

 Lopp Lagoon, and there I found this little wanderer from the Siberian shore in 

 company with yellow wagtails. A south wind had been blowing for a few 

 days previous, which changed to the north the evening before. On these changes 

 of winds I observed that Old World birds were likely to drift across the channel. 



Harry S. Swarth has very kindly given me, in advance of publi- 

 cation by the California Academy of Sciences, the latest records of 

 the occurrence of this species in Alaska. While collecting for the 

 academy on Nunivak Island, C. G. Harrold took two specimens, a 



