538 SOCIABLE PLOVER. 



known, but with which I happened to be familiar, having recently 

 received from the Crimea the specimen figured in the background 

 of the present illustration. The bird has not actually been killed 

 in Poland, but near Lublin in September 1842 Prof Taczanowski 

 identified two adults — which he was unable to shoot — in company 

 with some Golden Plovers. From Bulgaria or the Dobrudscha this 

 species has not yet been recorded, but it inhabits the steppes of the 

 Crimea and of the district between the Don, the Volga and the 

 Caucasus, though not ranging further north than lat. 53° according 

 to Bogdanovv. Eastward, it is met with in the Aralo-Caspian region, 

 and in Turkestan as far as Lake Saisan; crossing the Pamir plateau in 

 September to the dry uplands of Sind and the sandy plains of India, 

 and wandering southward to Ceylon in the cold season, when it also 

 visits Arabia, Egypt, Nubia and Abyssinia. 



Details respecting the nidification of this species are wanting, but 

 eggs obtained through the Moravian colony at Sarepta, on the Volga, 

 are rather paler than those of the Lapwing and less thickly spotted. 

 The food consists of spiders, grasshoppers, beetles and their larvae. 

 Von Heuglin, who had opportunities of observing this bird in 

 Kordofan and Sennaar, says that it frequented sandy localities and 

 ground that had been burnt ; it was, as a rule, quite silent, but 

 every now and then he heard it utter a short, shrill whistle. 



The adult has the crown of the head glossy-black, enclosed by a 

 broad white band which starts from the base of the bill and runs 

 backwards above each eye to the nape ; lores and a narrow streak 

 behind each eye black ; nape and mantle ash-grey, rather browner 

 on the wing-coverts ; secondaries conspicuously white, quills chiefly 

 black ; tail-feathers white, with a subterminal band of dark brown 

 on all except the outer pair ; chin white ; cheeks and sides of the 

 throat pale buff; breast ash-grey, turning to black on the abdomen, 

 followed by rich chestnut-red on the flanks and vent ; axillaries and 

 under tail-coverts white ; bill, legs and feet black. Length 13 in. ; 

 wing 8 in. The sexes scarcely differ in plumage. The young bird 

 has the crown dark brown, with a buffish-white circlet ; cheeks and 

 nape dull buff striped with brown ; breast rather distinctly marked 

 with ' arrow-heads ' of ash-grey ; abdomen dull white, with a little 

 chestnut above the vent ; the tivo outer pairs of tail-feathers white ; 

 axillaries and under wing-coverts white, as in the adult. 



This species is often placed in the genus Chettusia, but for the 

 purpose of the present work I have thought best to unite it with 

 Vaiiellus, inasmuch as it has a hind-toe. 



