EUDROMIAS MODESTA. 171 



each end, could knock down as many as he liked. 1 have killed them 

 in this way myself, also with the bold perdida a ball at the end of a 

 long string thrown at random into a cloud of birds. 



The habits, flight, and language of the Golden Plover need not be 

 spoken of here, as this bird has been so often and exhaustively described 

 by North-American ornithologists. The only peculiarity it possesses 

 which I have not seen mentioned, is its faculty of producing a loud 

 sound, as of a horn, when a few passing birds, catching sight of others 

 of their kind on the ground below, descend violently and almost verti- 

 cally to the earth with unmoving wings. This feat is, however, rarely 

 witnessed ; and on the first occasion when I heard the sound high above 

 me, and looked up to see half a dozen Chorlos rushing down from the 

 sky, the sight almost took my breath away with astonishment. 



The Golden Plover appears to be most abundant on the pampas 

 between the thirty-fourth and thirty-sixth parallels of latitude, but ho\v 

 far south its range extends has not yet been ascertained. The return 

 migration begins early in March, and yet Mr. Barrows met with it in 

 the neighbourhood of Bahia Blanca and on the Sierra de la Ventana from 

 February 8 to March 19. During most of this time he says it was 

 abundant in flocks of from twenty to two hundred birds, which appeared 

 to be moving uniformly south or south-west. 



388. EUDROMIAS MODESTA (Licht.). 

 (WINTER PLOVER.) 



Vanellus modestus, JBurm, La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 502 (Pampas). Eudromias 

 modesta, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 143 j iid. P. Z. S. 1868, p. 144 (Buenos 

 Ayres); Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 197 (Buenos Ayres), et 1878, p. 402 

 (Centr. Patagonia) ; Sorrows, Auk, 1884, p. 313 (Entrerios) j Withington, 

 Ibis, 1888, p. 472 (Lomas de Zamora). Charadrius modestus, Seebohm, 

 Plovers, p. 105. 



Description. Above brownish cinereous ; frontal band and superciliary stripe 

 white ; wings and central tail-feathers blackish ; lateral tail-feathers white, the 

 inner ones with an imperfect black subterminal band : beneath, throat cinereous, 

 breast bright chestnut with a black band below ; belly white ; bill black, base 

 of lower mandible yellowish ; feet brown : whole length 7'5 inches, wing 5-3, 

 tail 2'4. Female similar. Young without the rufous chest. 



Hab. Antarctic America. 



This species in its gait, flight, and general appearance closely re- 

 sembles the American Golden Plover, but is smaller than that bird, and 

 its sober upper plumage is unrelieved with flecks of golden colour. It 

 breeds in South Patagonia and the Falklands, and migrates north in 

 autumn, appearing on the pampas in April, and being met with there 



