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PLOVEKS: AND SANDPIFERS. 81 
are largely regulated by the weather, and I have 
known it desert a district entirely, or become very 
restless and unsettled, just previous to a storm. 
In spring the sea coasts are deserted, and the 
Golden Plover retires to its breeding-grounds. 
These, in our islands, are situated on the upland 
moors and mountain plateaux. The nest, invariably 
made upon the ground, is often placed on a hassock 
of coarse herbage, or on a tuft of cotton grass, and 
consists merely of a hollow, lined with a few bits 
of withered grass or dead leaves. The eggs are 
four in number, buff blotched and spotted with 
various shades of brown, and more sparingly with 
gray. They are much richer and yellower in 
appearance than those of the Lapwing, otherwise 
closely resemble them. 
GRAY PLOVER. 
This handsome bird, generically separated by 
many ornithologists from the preceding, on account 
of its possessing a minute and entirely functionless 
hind toe, is the Vanxellus helveticus of Brisson, and 
the Charadrius helveticus of writers who ignore the 
genus Sguwatarola, founded by Leach on the above- 
named trivial and, all things considered, utterly 
inadequate character. The Gray Plover is the first 
species we have considered in the present work that 
does not breed in the British Islands. Many birds 
of this species only pass our coast on migration in 
going to, and returning from, their Arctic breeding- 
F 
