PLOVER 731 
ance with modern observation, for in rainy weather Plovers are 
wilder and harder to approach theme in fine. Others have thought 
it is from the spotted (as though with rain-drops) upper plumage of 
two of the commonest species of Plovers, to which the name espe- 
cially belongs—the Charadrius pluvialis of Linneus, or Golden 
CHARADRIUS (head and foot). SQquaTaROLa (bill and hind toe). 
(After Swainson.) 
Plover, and the Squatarola helvetica of recent ornithologists, or Grey 
Plover. Both these birds are very similar in general appearance, 
but the latter is the larger and has an aborted hind-toe on each 
foot,! while its axillary feathers, which in the Golden Plover are 
pure white, are black, and this difference often affords a ready 
means of distinguishing the two species when on the wing, even at 
a considerable distance. The Grey Plover is a bird of almost 
circumpolar range, breeding in the far north of America, Asia and 
eastern Europe,” 2 frequenting | in spring and autumn the coasts of the 
more temperate parts of each continent, and generally retiring 
further southward in winter—examples not unfrequently reaching 
the Cape Colony, Ceylon, Australia and even Tasmania. Charadrius 
pluvialis has a much narrower distribution, though where it occurs 
it is much more numerous as a species. Its breeding-quarters do 
not extend further than from Iceland to western Siberia, but include 
the more elevated tracts in the British Islands, w hence in autumn 
it spreads itself, often in immense flocks, over the cultivated districts 
if the fields be sufficiently open. Here some will remain so long as 
the absence of frost or snow permits, but the majority make for the 
Mediterranean basin, or the countries beyond, in which to winter ; 
and, as with the Grey Plover, stragglers find their way to the 
1 But for this really unimportant distinction both would doubtless have been 
kept in the same genus, for they agree in most other structural characters. » As 
it is they have long been sundered. 
2 The earliest account of its breeding in America was no doubt mistaken, but 
it was found there by Mr. MacFarlane in 1864. The first discovery of its eggs 
was by Von Middendorff in 1843, who described them (Sib. Heise, ii. p. 209, 
pl. xix. fig. 1), while another obtained by him has since been figured (Proc. Zool, 
Soe. 1861, p. 398, pl. xxxix. fig. 2). Subsequently it was found breeding in 
Europe by Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Seebohm (dis, 1876, pp. 222-230, pl. v.). 
