CHAEADEIID.E. 



the Taimyr peninsula, in Siberia. An account of his discovery will be found in 

 his ' Sibirische Reise ' (1853, Band ii. p. 209). He describes the nests as formed 

 of dry leaves and grasses, and says the female birds Avere sitting on their four eggs 

 on June 26th. 



Mr. R. MacFarlane, who obtained eggs of the Grey Plover on the Arctic 

 coast of North America, writes as follows * : — " Our first introduction to this 

 handsome and somewhat rare Arctic plover was on Island Point, in Franklin Bay, 

 on 4th July 1864. The nest contained four eggs and was composed of a small 

 quantity of withered grasses placed in a depression on the side or face of a very 

 gentle eminence. Both parents were seen and the male shot. We at first mis- 

 took them for the Golden Plover, which they so much resemble, but their note 

 and a close comparison of skins soon undeceived us. On the following day another 

 nest with four eijss was discovered, and a third also was met with, over which a 

 snare was set ; but, unfortunately, while we slept, a Snowy Owl [Xyctea nyctea, 

 Linn.) devoured the captured female, together with her four eggs. In 1865, seven 

 nests were gathered by our party in the same quarter. It is probable that both 

 parents relieve each other during the process of incubation, as a male bird was 

 snared on one of the nests. We never received a single skin or egg of this, but 

 plenty of the Golden Plover, from the Esquimaux of the Lower Anderson or from 

 the shores of Liverpool Bay." 



Messrs. Seebohm and Harvie-Brown succeeded in obtaining eggs of the Grey 

 Plover in the valley of the Petchora, in Siberia, in 1875. They found ten nests 

 containing eggs between June 22nd and July 12th, and obtained specimens of 

 the young in down. Mr. Seebohm's graphic account of their discoveries, which 

 appeared in his ' Siberia in Europe ' and ' History of British Birds ' and in other 

 w^orks, is so well known that it is unnecessary to reproduce it here. The nests 

 were found on the tundra, and were usually placed on the dry tussocky ridges 

 intersecting the bogs. One described was "a hollow, evidently scratched, perfectly 

 round, somewhat deep, and containing a handful of broken slender twigs and 

 reindeer-moss." Owing to the wariness of the birds, the discovery of the nests 

 was at first a difficult matter, but after some practice this became easier. It was 

 necessary to distinguish carefuUy between the male and the female bii'd, and to 

 watch the latter on to the nest. As far as was observed only the female attended 

 to incubation. 



Mr. A. Trevor-Battye, who found the Grey Plover nesting on Kolguev Island 

 in 1894, -sn-ites as follows f : — " From the day of our first landing till about the 



* " Notes on and List of Birds and Eggs collected in Arctic America, 1S61-1S6G," Proc. U.S. 

 Nat. Museum, vol. xiv. 1891, p. 429. 



t ' Ice-bound on Kolguev ' (Westminster : A. Constable & Co., 1895), pp. 131, 432. 



