RINGED PLOVER. 259 



tion. The parents are greatly attached to then- young, and 

 practise various devices to draw off any intruder from their 

 charge, while from the great similarity in colour to the 

 surrounding materials, either the eggs or the young are very 

 difficult to find. The latter can run as soon as they emerge 

 from the shell. They feed on worms, spiders, beetles, and, 

 when at the edge of the sea, on the various species of the 

 thinner-skinned Crustacea, as shrimps, sand-hoppers, &c., 

 and, with these, are taken particles of grit to aid digestion. 

 The note of this bird is a melodious whistle, and when 

 alarmed resembles the word pen-y-et; but during the pair- 

 ing time the male has a distinct love-call. 



In the autumn those birds which have frequented the 

 inland localities come down to the coasts, and a partial migra- 

 tion southward takes place ; the gaps being filled by arrivals 

 from other, and chiefly northern, latitudes. In spring they 

 return, but whereas the birds which are more or less resident, 

 and also the visitors from the north, belong to a large and 

 comparatively bullet-headed form with a dull-coloured mantle ; 

 they are followed in May by numerous individuals of a 

 small size, more slender form, darker mantle and more 

 sharply defined coloration. This form has even been given 

 specific rank under the name of jE. interviedia (Menetries), 

 for which, however, there do not seem to be sufficient 

 grounds. Apparently the smaller race is a southern form, 

 which only visits our shores during the spring migration, 

 nor is it easy to say where its members go on leaving, as they 

 do after a short stay : with perhaps a few exceptions on the 

 south coast, particularly in Sussex, where they are believed 

 to breed. Individuals of this smaller race have frequently 

 been recorded as Little Ribged Plovers (.E. curonica), but 

 this, which will next be treated, is a perfectly distinct species 

 and one whose apparitions, even in our southern districts, 

 are exceedingly rare and irregular. 



Malmgren states that a brood of the Ringed Plover was 

 found, and had probably been bred, on the Seven Islands in 

 lat. 80° 45' N., and the bird appears to have been obtained in 

 Spitsbergen. It breeds in Iceland and Greenland, and on the 



