GOLDEN PLOVER. 363 



remarks his having seen a variety of the Golden Plover, with black 

 breasts, which he supposed to be the young.* 



The Golden Plover is common in the northern parts of Europe. It 

 breeds on high and heathy mountains. The female lays four eggs, of 

 a pale olive color, variegated with blackish spots. They usually fly in 

 small flocks, and have a shrill whistling note. They are very frequent 

 in Siberia, where they likewise breed; extend also to Kamtschatka, and 

 as far south as the Sandwich Isles. In this latter place, Mr. Pennant 

 remarks, "they are very small." 



Although these birds are occasionally found along our seacoast, from 

 Georgia to Maine, yet they are nowhere numerous ; and I have never 

 met with them in the interior. Our mountains being generally covered 

 with forest, and no species of heath having, as yet, been discovered 

 within the boundaries of the United States, these birds are probably 

 induced to seek the more remote arctic regions of the continent to breed 

 and rear their young in, where the country is more open, and unencum- 

 bered with woods. 



The Golden Plover is ten inches and a half long, and twenty-one 

 inches in extent ; bill short, of a dusky slate color ; eye very large, blue 

 black ; nostrils placed in a deep furrow, and half covered with a pro- 

 minent membrane ; whole upper parts black, thickly marked with 

 roundish spots of various tints of golden yellow ; wing-coverts, and hind 

 part of the neck, pale brown, the latter streaked with yellowish ; front, 

 broad line over the eye, chin, and sides of the same, yellowish white, 

 streaked with small pointed spots of brown olive ; breast gray, with 

 olive and white ; sides under the wings marked thinly with transverse 

 bars of pale olive ; belly and vent white ; wing quills black, the middle 

 of the shafts marked with white ; greater coverts black, tipped with 

 white ; tail rounded, black, barred with triangular spots of golden 

 yellow ; legs dark dusky slate ; feet three-toed, with generally the slight 

 rudiments of a heel, the outer toe connected as far as the first joint 

 ■with the middle one. The male and female differ very little in color. 



* Arct. Zool. p. 484. 



