190 BIRDS OF LA PLATA 
but most of the birds s@#f during that month are 
travellers to warmer latitudes. 
It is a shy and exceedingly active bird, somewhat 
larger than the Golden Plover in size, and in the 
Plata district is usually called Chorlo canela, from 
the prevailing cinnamon-red of the plumage. It is 
distinguished in the family it belongs to by the great 
length of its straight, slender, probe-like bill, unlike 
that of any other Plover; and it also has other 
structural peculiarities, the toes being exceptionally 
short and thick, the frontal bone curiously modified, 
and the eyes enormously large, like those of a noc- 
turnal species. I do not think, however, that it 
migrates by night, as I have never heard its peculiar 
passage-cry after dark. A flock is usually composed 
of from a dozen to thirty individuals, and when on 
the ground they scatter widely, running more rapidly 
than any other Plover I am acquainted with. When 
they travel the flight is swift and high, the birds 
much scattered. They possess no mellow or ringing 
notes like other members of the Plover family; on 
the ground they are silent, but when taking wing 
invariably utter a long, tremulous, reedy note, with a 
falling inflection, and usually repeated three or four 
times. The sound may be imitated by striking on the 
slackened stings of a guitar. This cry is frequently 
uttered while the birds are migrating. 
On the Rio Negro in Patagonia I observed this 
Plover only in the winter season; but Durnford 
found it nesting in the valley of the Sengel in Chupat 
in the month of December, 
