GREAT PLOVER, 383 



the bare ground, among stones and grey flints. The eggs 

 are pale clay brown, blotched, spotted, and streaked with 

 ash-blue and dark brown : two inches two lines in length, by 

 one inch seven lines in breadth ; and so closely do these eggs, 

 and also the chicks in their downy covering, assimilate in 

 colour with the soil and the stones around them, that they 

 are both very difficult to find. 



The large and prominent eye in this species indicates a 

 bird that moves and feeds by twilight or later. Their food 

 is worms, slugs, and insects ; they are believed also to kill 

 and devour small mammalia and small reptiles, for which 

 their stout frame and large beak seem sufficiently powerful. 

 Mr. Selby and the Rev. L. Jenyns found the remains of 

 large coleopterous insects, of the genus Carahus, in the sto- 

 mach of the Great Plover, and these beetles. It will be recol- 

 lected, do not begin to move about till the close of day. 



The Great Plover annually visits Germany, and is abun- 

 dant in France, Spain, Provence, Italy, Sardinia, and, south- 

 Avard, to Africa, Madeira, and even to southern Africa; Dr. 

 Andrew Smith having obtained specimens during the progress 

 of the exploring expedition from the Cape northwards. 



Eastward it is found in Turkey and the Grecian Archipe- 

 lago. Mr. Strickland, Avhen at Smyrna, was told that it 

 occurs in Asia Minor, of which there is little doubt, the 

 Zoological Society having received specimens from Trebizond, 

 and the Russian naturalist, M. Hohenacker, having also 

 found it on the plains between the Black and the Caspian 

 Seas. 



In the adult bird, the beak is black at the point, the base 

 greenish yellow ; the irides golden yellow ; the top of the 

 head and back of the neck pale wood-brown, each feather 

 with a streak of black in the centre ; from the base of the 

 upper mandible a light-coloured streak passes backward under 

 the eye to the ear-coverts ; from the base of the lower man- 



