164 BRITISH BIRDS. (vol. ix. 



have had young. Therefore I went a mile further 

 down the river, and found another pair Mhich were 

 breeding on a \\ ide piece of tundra sloping gently doA\n 

 to the water-side. These birds were fairly tame, but 

 it took me a long time to mark down the nest. This 

 was owing partly to the stupidity of one of the Siberians, 

 who, contrary to my orders, shot at the hen bird, thus 

 scaring her badly ; and partly to the nature of the 

 ground. Between the nest and the river bank, A\hich 

 afforded the nearest covert, lay a deep gulch of snow, 

 and in order to cross this, the eye had to be taken from 

 the spot whence the bird had just risen. As I was 

 working alone, I was obliged to define the probable 

 whereabouts Avith pegs, which took a little time, though 

 not so long perhaps as mere searching would have done. 

 The nest when found consisted of a shallow depression, 

 lined with a few lichen haulms. Mr. Trevor-Battye, 

 Avriting of the nests that he found on Kolguev {o'p. cit., 

 p. 432), says that the depression was a deep one, but 

 it probably varies according to the nature of the ground 

 in different places. The eggs were on the point of 

 hatching. The female bird, which Mas much the tamer 

 of the two, was in far finer plumage than her mate. 

 I noticed this also in the case of a pair of Asiatic Golden 

 Plovers, but whether as a rule one sex begins to moult 

 earlier than the other I do not know. Messrs. Harvie- 

 Brown and Seebohm, writing of this species {Ibis 1876, 

 p. 228), state that the males appear to have richer con- 

 trasts and that they retained the black longer than the 

 females. The Grey Plover was of such unusual occurrence 

 in the Golchika district that I have no data upon A\-hich 

 to form an opinion in the matter. But I do not think 

 that this was the case with Charadrius fulvus. Four 

 skins which I obtained between July 29tli and August 1st. 

 two males and two females, show no difference. In fact 

 one of the cocks is the palest of the four. Possibly 

 skins obtained ten days earlier might l)etter have 

 demonstrated the diiference, but I have none of that date. 



