292 GOLDEN PLOVER. 



by the time frost or winter has set in, they may 

 be found assembled on the sea shores in flocks, the 

 produce of the breeding- grounds of the district. 

 Before retiring- to the shores, the flocks may be 

 sometimes approached, or they come within shot 

 in the wheels which it is their habit to make 

 around any thing that disturbs them. On the 

 coast they are much more shy, though, from the 

 numbers composing the flock, the discharge of the 

 fowler is often successful at a very long distance. 



A very extended or cosmopolite distribution has 

 been given to this bird, but, of its range, we may 

 at once say we do not know the correct limits. 

 We are inclined, at this moment, to consider it 

 limited almost to Europe alone, its place elsewhere 

 being taken up by the C. Virginianus. We have 

 never seen an extra European specimen of the 

 British Golden Plover. Sweden, as mentioned by 

 Mr. Yarrell, on the authority of Professor Nilson 

 and Mr. Loyd ; Norway, where Mr. Hewitson 

 saw it ; Hammerfest, as stated by Mr. Chisty ; 

 and probably Lapland,* with suitable localities 

 in other western districts of the European Conti- 

 nent, may be held as a certain extent of range ; 

 but we still think Faroe, Greenland, and Iceland, 

 questionable. The American and Arctic birds are 

 undoubtedly distinct, and, besides their smaller 

 size and other distinctions, may be at once sepa- 

 rated by the hair-brown colour of the underwing 

 coverts and axillary feathers, which, in the British 

 * Linn. Tour in Lapland. 



