CHARADRIDE. 331 
female have the white belt across the breast, but 
in the female it is less distinctly marked.” 
Of the egg Yarrell says that one in his own collec- 
tion is of a yellowish olive colour, blotched and spotted 
with dark brownish black: they are rather smaller 
than those of the Golden Plover, as is the bird. 
Ring Dorrerer, Charadrius hiaticula. The 
pretty little Ring Dotterel, or ‘‘ Ringed Plover,” as 
it is also called, is very numerous all along our 
Somersetshire coast, certainly contradicting the 
assertion of Meyer* that “on muddy or marshy 
shores it is never seen:” had he only paid a visit 
to the mud of Burnham and Watchet, and seen the 
hundreds of Ring Dotterel there feeding with the 
Purres on mud so deep and soft that if you shot 
one on it you could not go to pick it up, nor would 
any amount of beer tempt your boatman to try, he 
would hardly have made such a statement with 
regard to this bird. Of the Sanderling it may 
possibly be true, as I have never seen one on our 
muddy coast, or received a Somersetshire specimen, 
though I have received specimens from Braunton 
Burrows, in North Devon, which, though not very 
far off, is without any of our mud; andon the South 
Devon coast, the three species, Purre, Sanderling 
and Ring Dotterel, are nearly equally common; but 
there they have their choice of sand or mud, and 
* Meyer's ‘ British Birds,’ vol. v., p. 182. 
