354 



NKW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Aegialitis meloda (Ord) 

 Piping Plover 



C h a r a d r i u s in e 1 o d u s Ord. Edition of Wilson's Ornithology. 1824. 7:71 



DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 210, fig. 177 

 Aegialitis meloda A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 2. 1895. No. 277 

 ' melo'da, Lat., melodious 



Description. Upper parts pale whitish ash; primaries dusky with 

 white middle sections; secondaries and greater coverts mostly white; base 

 of tail and its outermost feathers white, others with blackish terminal portions, 

 slightly tipped with white; a black belt, usually broken on the center of 

 jugulum and narrow on back of neck, being widest on sides; a short black 

 iaand on the forecrown, not reaching from eye to eye; frontlet, throat, collar 



and under parts pure white; legs and 

 base of bill yellow or orange ; temiinal 

 half of bill black ; eyelids orange. This 

 is the whitest of our little plovers. 



Length 6.5-7.5 inches; extent 14; 

 wing 4.5-4.75; tarsus .85-95; middle 

 toe and claw .75; bill .45-. 48. 



The Piping plover. Pale ring-neck. 

 Beach -bird, or Beach-flea inhabits the 

 eastern United States, breeding as far 

 north as the Gtdf of St La-wrence and 

 Manitoba, and wintering from Carolina 

 and the gulf coast to the West Indies. 

 In New York it is threatened with 

 „. . , . . ,. . , , ^ .,. o ■ <• extirpation. Though it was common 



Piping plover. Aegialitis mc-Iorla (Ord). Specimen irorn J- ^ 



Lake Ontario no^v in Stat. Museum. 3 nat. size aloUg thC SOUth and CaSt COaStS of 



Long Island in Giraud's time, it is now practically limited as a breeding 

 species to Gardiners island, Ram island and similar localities in eastern 

 Suffolk cotmty. It undoubtedly bred in former years along Lake Erie and 

 Lake Ontario, and Mr Todd found several pairs nesting at Presque Isle, Pa., 

 In 1 900, but I can find no definite breeding record for western New York. 

 The following records from the interior of New York are before me. 



Owasco Lake. Fall 1876. Birds Cen. X. V. p. 30 

 Lockport, N. Y. Aug. 20, 1885. J. L. Davison 



