390 CHARADRIID.E. 



zond ; and the Russian naturalists found them on tlie plains 

 between the Black and the Cas])ian Seas. 



I have not been able to trace our Golden Plover farther 

 to the eastward than this. After a close examination of 

 various examples in the collections of the Linnean and Zoo- 

 logical Societies from India, Java, New Holland, and the 

 Society Isles, I believe, with Sir William Jardine and Mr. 

 Selby, that the Asiatic Golden Plover is a species distinct 

 from our bird, but identical with that of the American con- 

 tinents, in which the bird, though smaller, has a longer beak 

 and longer legs, with a greater extent of naked space above 

 the joint, the yellow spots on the feathers of the lower part 

 of the back more oval in shape than triangular, and the 

 axillary plume is always ash brown, while that of our Euro- 

 pean bird is as invariably elongated and pure white.* 



The adult bird in its summer plumage has the beak black ; 

 the irides very dark brown, almost black ; on the forehead a 

 band of white ; top of the head, the nape of the neck, the 

 back, wing-coverts, tertials, rump, and upper tail-covcrts, 

 greyish black, the edges of all the feathers varied with tri- 

 angular-shaped sjDots of gamboge yellow ; wing-primaries 

 almost black ; tail-feathers obliquely barred with shades of 

 greyish white and brownish black ; the lore, chin, sides of 

 the neck, throat, breast, and all the under surface of the 

 body as far as the vent, jet black, bounded on the sides with 

 a band of white below the wing ; axillary plume elongated, 

 and pure white ; under tail-coverts white. 



In winter the chin is white ; front of the neck and the 

 breast, white, tinged with dusky, and spotted with dull yel- 

 low ; the upper surface of the body nearly as in summer ; 



* M. Temminck, in the Fourth Part of his Manual, says, " Les sujets tues 

 dans les regions intertropicales de I'Ancien-monde sont toujours revetus du 

 plumage d'hiver ; il ne nous est pas parvenu d'individus en livree parfaite des 

 noces. La race de ces climats est constamment plus petite dans toutes ces 

 dimensions que celle de nos contrees." 



