( 82 ) 



NOTES ON THE liliEEDING-HABITS OF THE 

 ASIATIC GOLDEN FL()\ KK. 



BY 



MAUD D. HAVILAXD. 



A LITTLE while ago I was watching half-a-dozen Golden 

 Plover {Charadrins apricarins) resting on some Berkshire 

 ploughed fields. The last time that I had looked at a 

 Golden Plover at close quarters was at Golchika, at the 

 mouth of the Yenesei river, and T could not help being 

 struck with the difference between the European bird 

 and the Asiatic Golden Plover {Chamdrius d. fulvus). 

 Charadrius apricarius, judged even in breeding-plumage, 

 is, when seen in the field, merely an understudy of the 

 Asiatic bird, and a beggarly imderstudy at that. In the 

 Asiatic Golden Plover the black of the breast is more 

 uniform and more intense ; the fretty gold pattern of 

 the wings is brighter ; and the white neck- stripe, A\hoso 

 line is just that of the quaint dignified curve of a lord 

 chancellor's wig, is as clear and defined as if it had been 

 traced out with chalk. 



Nevertheless, the Asiatic Golden Plover is a bird that 

 leaves the photographer discontented. Monochrome does 

 no justice to contrasts of black and ochre, and except 

 perhaps for the comparative slenderness of the bill, 

 and a certain grace and alertness of pose A\hich are 

 more readily captured by the eye than by the camera, 

 ])hotographs of Charadrius d. jidvus might equally A\ell 

 represent the Grey Plover {Squatarola squatarola). 



Both Seebohm and Mr. Popham found the common 

 Golden Plover (C. apricarius) on the Yenesei, and the 

 latter has in his collection a bird with parti-coloured 

 axillaries, wliidi Iwis ])een pronounced by Mr. H. E. 

 Dresser to be intermediate between the two species, 

 but as far as I know, in 1914, I met with nothing but 

 Charadrius d. jidvus. I first saw a few birds at Dudinka. 

 A\hero thev wore pro])a]>ly on migration, and aft(>r\\iird-; 



