24 BRITISH BIRDS. 



are sometimes very demonstrative, especially if they have young ; and 

 they will feign lameness to Im-e an intruder away from their treasure. 

 When alarmed, the young birds try to elude diseovery by crouching close 

 amongst the pebbles. At this season the old birds are surprisingly tame 

 and confiding, seeming to lose all sense of personal danger in their anxiety 

 for their helpless broods. Other enemies besides man have to be guarded 

 against. My friend ^Nlr. C. Holdsworth has sent me an interesting account 

 of the Hen- Harrier preying upon the eggs of the Ringed Plover ; he 

 watched a bird of that species destroy several nests after systematically 

 hunting; for them on the sands. Bv ^vatching carefullv the actions of the 

 Harrier he was able to find the eggs of the Plover with little difficulty. 



The adult male Ringed Plover in breeding-plumage is a conspicuously 

 marked bird, possessing only three colours in its plumage, viz. black, 

 white, and greyish brown. The. black portion is confined to a narrow 

 band at the back of the neck, which becomes broad on the lower throat 

 and upper breast ; a narrow black band at the base of the upper mandible 

 extends through the lores and below the eye to the ear-coverts, joining 

 a baud across the fore part of the head in front of the eye. The white 

 parts of the plumage comprise the entire underparts below the upper 

 breast, including the axillaries and under wing-coverts, a narrow ring 

 round the neck, which widens so as to extend over the cheeks, chin, 

 and upper throat, a white patch on the forehead between the black on the 

 fore part of the crown and that at the base of the bill, and an indistinct 

 eve-stripe behind the eye. The hind head and nape, and the remainder of 

 the upper parts below the black ring round the neck, are greyish brown, 

 darkest on the quills and two central tail-feathers. The outside tail- 

 feather on each side is white, and the remainder, except the two central 

 ones, have broad white tips emphasized by broad dark subterminal bands. 

 A white bar across the wing is formed by the tips of the greater wing- 

 coverts and some of the secondaries ; the middle portion of the shafts of 

 the quills is also white, extending to the outer webs after the third or 

 fourth primary. Bill — basal half orange-yellow, terminal half black ; legs 

 and feet orange-yellow, claws black ; orbits orange ; irides hazel. The 

 female is not quite so brilliant in colour as the male. After the autumn 

 moult veiy little change is perceptible, except that the male is scarcely 

 more brilliant in colour than the female. In birds of the year the portions 

 which are black in the adult are dark brown : in young in first plumage 

 these feathers are almost uniform in colour with those of the back, and, 

 like them, have narrow pale tips emphasized by a narrow subterminal dark 

 brown bar ; the bill is also imiform black. The young in down have 

 the upper parts greyish brown, mottled with dark brown, the underparts 

 pure white, and have traces of a black and white collar round the neck. 



