CHARADRID. 335 
our muddy shores, not, however, remaining to breed, 
although it occasionally stays long enough to have 
nearly, if not quite, assumed its summer plumage. 
The food of the Grey Plover consists of marine 
insects, shore-worms and small shell-fish, which it 
finds on the mud. Meyer adds to this “worms, 
beetles and their larve, which it finds on meadows 
and wastes.” I have never myself seen this species 
except on the mud; it may, however, and probably 
does, retire to such places during high spring-tides, 
when its usual feeding-places are under water. 
The accounts of the nest of the Grey Plover seem 
to be from high northern latitudes, and these ac- 
counts are very meagre. 
The young birds of the year very much resemble 
the young of the Golden Plover: I saw some at 
Teignmouth in November, in the poulterers’ shops, 
that, looking at them across the street, you could 
hardly identify, and I dare say the poulterer sold 
them for Golden Plovers; still on a closer inspec- 
tion they may always be identified by the hind toe 
and by the axillary plume,—that is, the longish 
feathers immediately under the wing, where it joins 
the body,—which in this species is black at all ages. 
The plumage in which the Grey Plover most 
frequently occurs is its ordinary winter plumage, 
which is as follows:—The beak is black; irides 
dark brown; just over the beak is white, rest of the 
head and nape light dusky, each feather narrowly 
