526 LITTLE RINGED PLOVER. 



dantly in Poland and Germany, less plentifully in Scandinavia and 

 Denmark, and seldom in Holland and Belgium, where localities 

 suited to its tastes are wanting. It does not affect the open sea- 

 coast, preferring expanses of sandy soil by inland lakes or large 

 rivers, and these it finds in some parts of France, the Spanish 

 Peninsula, Italy, the south of Europe generally, and Northern 

 Africa. In Asia, besides Siberia as already mentioned, it nests in 

 Turkestan up to an altitude of 4,000 feet, China and Japan; it visits 

 India as far as Ceylon during the cold season, and ranges south- 

 ward to the Moluccas and New Guinea. In Africa it has been re- 

 corded from as far down as Mozambique on the east and the Gaboon 

 on the west. A small Plover, said to have been obtained at San Fran- 

 cisco, was described as a new species by Mr. Ridgway, under the 

 name of ^"E. micro rhyiidia, and subsequently identified by him with 

 ^E. ciiroiiica ; but he now considers it very doubtful whether the 

 locality given on the label was correct. 



The usual breeding-places of this bird are sandy islets and 

 strips of waste land overgrown with coarse wiry grass on the 

 margins of rivers ; also the dried-up beds of winter-torrents an^ 

 elevated stony plains. Incubation seldom begins before the latter 

 half of May, when the eggs, 4 in number, are laid in a slight 

 hollow ; their colour is pale stone-buff, with minute dark brown 

 spots and streaks, very different from the bolder markings prevalent 

 in the preceding species: average measurements 1*15 by "85 in. 

 The usual note is rendered by Naumann as did or ded ; but the love- 

 call, chiefly uttered by the male when on the wing, is a more pro- 

 longed trill. The food consists of water-beetles and other insects, 

 in search of which the bird has been observed to turn over small 

 stones. 



The adult Little Ringed Plover is smaller in size, slenderer in 

 form, and one-fourth less in weight than ^E. hiaticiila ; the shafts of 

 the primaries are all dusky, except the outer one which is zvhite, 

 whereas in the larger species there are flecks of white on the shafts 

 which form a conspicuous bar when the wing is extended ; the 

 general colour of the upper parts is even paler in ^. curonica than 

 it is in Continental examples of the Ringed Plover. In spring the 

 eyelids are golden yellow, and the legs are of a pale ochre colour. 

 Length 6"5 in. ; wing 4*5 in. The young exhibit a more decidedly 

 sandy tint on the upper parts than do those of the Ringed Plover, 

 and the down of the nestlings is more distinctly buff. 



