1S92.] Mackay on the Black-bellied Plover. ^43 



HABITS OF THE BLACK-BELLTED PLOVER 

 ( CHARADRIUS S^UAIAROLA) IN MASSA- 

 CHUSETTS.* 



BY GEORGE H. MACKAY. 



This distinguished-looking bird, the largest of the Plovers, is 

 nearly cosmopolitan. It ranges in the Western Hemisphere as 

 far south as Brazil, New Grenada and Peru, with a correspond- 

 ing limit in the Eastern Hemisphere in Australia and New 

 Guinea. It is said to breed on the marshes above forest growth 

 at the delta of the Lena River in northern Siberia, in the valley of 

 Pechora on Taimyr Peninsula, northern Russia, on the banks of 

 the Anderson River, and on Melville Peninsula in Alaska (See- 

 bohm's Plovers, p. 103 ; Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, N. A. 

 Birds, Vol. I, p. 132). 



In summer plumage the adult male is black from around the 

 base of the bill to the eyes, fore neck, and under parts of body; 

 abdomen to end of tail white ; axillars black ; forehead and fore 

 half of crown creamy white to white ; a broad white line or band 

 running from the sides of the head over the eyes, down the sides 

 of the neck, and enlarging and encroaching into the black on the 

 breast where the neck joins the body, sharply defined in front by 

 the black, but blending into the plumage of the neck and back 

 (this white line or band is the most pi'ominent feature of their 

 plumage as seen from a distance) ; sides of the neck and rump 

 ashy gray ; back and hind half of crown whitish, covered with 

 small irregular spots of brownish black ; upper tail-coverts barred 

 with brownish black. The legs and bill are black ; small hind toe. 

 The adult female is rather smaller than the male ; the plumage of 

 the top of the head, back of the neck, and back, is duller with 

 more brownish, not being so defined as in the male; the fore neck, 

 breast and lower parts, interspersed with brownish to black, 

 and white, feathers ; abdomen white. They never have the 

 clear crow-black fore neck and breast of the males, nor is the 

 white band or line of the forehead ami sides of the neck so 

 prominent. As a whole their plumage lacks that clearly defined 



* Read before the Nuttall Ornithological Club, Dec. 7, 1891. 



