VOL IX.] ASIATIC GOLDEN PLOVER. 83 



the species was common aJl the way down to Golchika. 

 Each pair occupied perhaps two furlongs of tundra. 

 I should think that every acre of moss and lichen from 

 the Yenesei to the Lena in summer is thus parcelled out. 

 Your progress across the tundra in July is heralded 

 and attended by a chorus of plaintive cries. Both birds 

 meet you a quarter of a mile from the nest, and never 

 leave you until you are at the boundaries of their own 

 territory, and they can safely hand you over to their 

 next neighbours for espionage. Covert, of course, there 

 is none — but it is needless to say more. The suspicious- 

 ness and patience of the Golden Plover are the same all 

 the world over ; and I will not dwell upon them to those 

 who themselves have no doubt walked vainly for half a 

 day about the birds breeding-grounds in this country, 

 and hstened to its maddening but at the same time most 

 musical protests. 



It is a thankless and also a futile task to reduce the 

 calls of birds to syllables ; but with this much of depreca- 

 tion, I will follow the prevailing custom to say that, 

 as well as I can render it, the alarm note of this species 

 is a double-barrelled whistle " Kleee-yee." Sometimes 

 it is prolonged into " Kleee-ee-yee," and there is also 

 a sort of bubbling cry which is uttered on the wing, 

 and is very reminiscent of the note of the Ringed Plover, 

 but it is seldom heard. Roughly speaking, the alarm 

 note of the common Golden Plover is monosyllabic : 

 that of the Asiatic Golden Plover is dissyllabic ; and 

 that of the Grey Plover is distinctly trisyllabic in 

 character. 



The first nest was found on July 4th. It was a shallow 

 depression, lined with dry lichen haulms on a slope of 

 the tundra. The bird, which must, I think, either have 

 been deaf or else exceedingly stupid, did not move until 

 I was well over the hill and witliin sixty yards of her, 

 Avhen she jumped up and feigned a broken wing. The 

 eggs agreed with those described by Mr. Popham, being 

 paler in ground colour than the type of Charadrius 



