RINGED PLOVER. 95 
naturalists at Brighton,* and other parts of the south 
coast, have for some years distinguished a smaller race 
of ringed plovers, which make their appearance in May 
and again in August, and are said to differ also in note 
from the ordinary kind, which have eggs and even 
young, at times, before the arrival of these later mi- 
erants. It is not, however, I believe generally known 
that this smaller race is occasionally killed on Breydon ; 
and I believe for the most part in May, although a 
recently killed specimen was shown me on the 11th of 
March, 1867. Unfortunately I have had no opportunity 
of examining these birds in the flesh, and cannot 
say, therefore, if there is any difference in plumage 
between males and females, or give sufficiently accu- 
rate measurements for comparison with those of the 
* Mr. G. D. Rowley, writing from Brighton (“ Ibis,” 1860, p. 
101) mentions particularly the existence of two kinds of ringed 
plover, at Shoreham harbour, the smaller of which he evidently 
confounded at that time with the little ringed plover of authors 
(Charadrius minor), from which, however, it is clearly distinct. 
In the same journal for 1865 (p. 465), Mr. C. A. Wright, in his 
“ Second appendix to a list of birds obtained in Malta and Gozo,” 
states that the ringed plover, procured by him at Malta (where they 
begin to appear in March), agree “in every particular of size and 
colour,” with the smaller race procured at Brighton. He is not 
aware if the larger one is ever found in Southern Europe, but the 
true little ringed plover (C. minor), he includes amongst the 
regular visitants to Malta and Gozo (“ Ibis,” 1864, p. 141.) Ina 
foot note, also, to Mr. Wright’s paper, as quoted above (p. 465), 
the editor of the “Ibis,” suggests that the smaller race of ringed- 
plover “probably bears the same relation to AMgialites hiaticula 
that Tringa schinzi does to T'. alpina, and is inclined to believe that 
this bird is identical with the Charadrius intermedius of Ménétriés 
(Cat. Voy. au Caucase, p. 53), “which he found to be not rare on the 
river Lenkoranka, near the Caspian.” He further adds that a 
specimen procured from Natal by Mr. J. H. Gurney agrees “in 
every essential respect”? with those of the small race from Brighton 
and Shoreham. See also “ Ibis,” 1865, p. 432. 
