THE SEMIPALMATED PLOVER. 419 
Kill-deer Plover, but are some little smaller; varying in 
dimensions from 1.40 by 1.05 to 1.34 by 1.02 inch. The 
spots and markings are similar to those of the other, but 
are less thickly distributed: some specimens have obscure 
spots of purple and lilac, and the brown spots vary from 
quite blackish to the color of raw-umber. 
ZEGIALITIS SEMIPALMATUS. —(Bon.) Cadbanis. 
The Semipalmated Plover; Ring-neck. 
Charadrius semipalmatus, Nuttall. Man., II. 24. Aud. Orn. Biog., IV. (1838) 
256; V. 579. Jb., Birds Am., V. (1842) 218. 
Ai gialtes semipalmata, Bonaparte. List (1838). 
A gialitis semipalmatus, Cabanis. Cab. Journ. (1856), 425. 
Tringa hiaticula, Wilson. Am. Orn., VII. (1813) 65. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Small; wings long; toes connected at base, especially the outer to the middle 
toe; front, throat, ring around the neck, and entire under parts, white; a band of 
deep-black across the breast, extending around the back of the neck below the white 
ring; band from the base of the bill, under the eye, and wide frontal band above 
the white band, black; upper parts light ashy-brown, with a tinge of olive; quills 
brownish-black, with their shafts white in a middle portion, and occasionally a lan- 
ceolate white spot along the shafts of the shorter primaries; shorter tertiaries edged 
with white; lesser coverts tipped with white; middle feathers of the tail ashy olive- 
brown, with a wide subterminal band of brownish-black, and narrowly tipped with 
white; two outer tail feathers white, others intermediate, like the middle, but widely 
tipped with white; bill orange-yellow, tipped with black; legs yellow. Female simi- 
lar, but rather lighter-colored. Young without the black band in front, and with 
the band across the breast ashy-brown; iris, dark-hazel. 
Total length, about seven inches; wing, four and three-quarters inches; tail, two 
and a quarter inches. 
Hab. — The whole of temperate North America; common on the Atlantic. 
This pretty and well-known species is abundant in New 
England in the spring and fall migrations. It arrives from 
the South by the latter part of April, in small flocks of 
eight or ten individuals; some following the course of large 
rivers, like the Connecticut; others haunting the shores of 
large ponds and meadows; but the greater number follow- 
ing the seacoast, where they feed, like the others of this 
genus, on small crustaceans, shell-fish, and the eggs of fish 
and other marine animals. 
