PLOVER 6i 



frequently, and to do so occasionally at the present day. Indeed, eggs 

 have actually been purchased from the Fame fishermen, which there is 

 every reason to believe were those of turnstones. There is no evidence 

 that the species breeds in Ireland. Eggs of the turnstonc from Grinnell- 

 land, Finmark, Sweden, and Denmark are in the collection of the 

 British Museum. In length they measure from i^ to i J inches ; and 

 in ground-colour vary from pale greenish grey to olive-buff, with spots, 

 blotches, and smears of various shades of brown, olive-brown, and 

 underlying purplish grey ; these markings being larger and more 

 crowded at the big end, where they form a kind of cap. 



Plover Since the bird to which the names of golden, yellow, 



(Charadpius °^ green plover are commonly applied, appears to 

 pluvialis) ^^ ^^^ plover, par excellence, and consequently the 



only one to which that name properly belongs, it 

 manifestly requires no explanatory prefix, except as an aid in 

 distinguishing it from, other species. The name plover, or pluvialis, 

 equivalent to " rain-bird," refers, it is believed, to an old superstition 

 that this bird is more easily captured in wet than in fine weather. In 

 common with the following members of the Charadriins, it possesses 

 the characteristic plover-beak, which is distinctly swollen at the end, 

 with the superior surface convex. As a genus, the plovers are specially 

 distinguished by the yellow-spotted plumage of the upper-parts, and 

 the absence of the hind-toe ; and likewise by the assumption on the 

 part of both sexes of a special breeding-plumage, in which the under- 

 parts are uniformly black. Another point in which they differ markedly 

 from the turnstone is the length of the lower part of the leg, which 

 displays a network type of scaling all round. Only two representatives 

 of this genus of plover are known, both of which have an almost 

 cosmopolitan distribution, breeding in the northern part of their range, 

 and wandering to southern lands in winter. The southward range is, 

 however, much more restricted in the case of the present species than 

 in that of its smaller ally ; the latter reaching Australia, New Zealand, 

 South Africa, and South America, while the former does not wander 

 beyond India and northern Africa. 



In Europe the plover may be regarded as in some degree a partial 

 migrant, passing all the year in the more central parts of its haunts, such 

 as the British Islands, Germany, etc., but deserting the Mediterranean 

 countries in summer for the far north, where it breeds in latitudes as 

 high as Greenland, Jan Mayen, and Novaia Zemlia. Whether the 

 Mediterranean birds pass directly to the extreme north, or whether, 



