GEET PLOVEE. 3 



end of the first week in September we almost daily saw the Grey Plover. The 

 first nest I found was on June 26 on a high down about halfway across the island. 

 ' Here I took a Grey Plover's nest of four eggs and shot the female. The male of 

 this species is exceedingly wary and wild. They very seldom venture within shot. 

 After waiting about for a long time and sending Hyland round also with his gun, 

 I had to give it up. There is no possibility of confusing this with the Golden 

 Plover, even when on the wing. The call is quite different, and I think the flight 

 more powerful, and that is saying a good deal. The skuas stood no chance with 

 them. They actually seemed to both of us to hit the skuas, wheeling round them 

 and then, making a point high above, they would drop down like a stone, literally 

 knocking the skuas out of time. The nest was a deep circular depression, and 

 contained nothing but the eggs and a little lichen.' 



" In another nest on July 13 the eggs contained fully formed young ones. 

 From August 10 onwards there were immense flocks of these birds constantly 

 wheeling over the mud-flats. These birds behave very differently at different 

 times when nesting. Sometimes the hen-bird feigns lameness, though I never 

 saw the male do this. Often, however, their actions exactly recall those of the 

 stone-curlew, excepting that we never found a male brooding the eggs. The 

 male bird, who always sits on some raised point at a little distance from the hen, 

 gives, long before you come up, an alarm signal to the hen, whereupon she runs 

 off the nest and joins him. The breasts of the males we shot were all equally 

 black, but those of the females varied a great deal." 



In the following year (July 1895) Messrs. H. J. and C. E. Pearson also 

 obtained eggs of the Grey Plover on Kolguev. Mr. H. J. Pearson's notes on this 

 species are as follows*: — "The discovery of these eggs has been so well described 

 by Seebohm and Harvie-Brown in their paper in the ' Ibis,' that we have little to 

 add. We feel sure, however, that our brother ornithologists will sympathize with 

 our glow of pleasure and even our wild war-dance on finding our first nest con- 

 taining a clutch of four beautiful eggs. And, indeed, both glow and dance Avere 

 needed, for few things are more calculated to chill enthusiasm and unpleasantly 

 lower one's temperature than Avatching, for 50 minutes in a piercing wind and 

 sleet, even a Grey Plover to its nest. We took in all seven clutches of eggs (four, 

 four, four, four, four, one, and three respectively). The first two were fairly fresh. 

 In the third and fourth the chicks were calling and their beaks partly protruded 

 through the shell. The fifth contained young in down, but not quite so advanced. 

 The egg in the sixth was nearly hatched, and the three young birds from the other 

 eggs were caught about the nest. In the seventh two eggs were addled, one nearly 

 hatched, and one young in down caught near. A few more young were also 



* " List of Birds observed on Kolguev (July 5th to ]5tli [1895])," ' Ibis,' 1896, pp. 216, 217. 



