RINGED PLOVER. 95 



naturalists at Brighton,* and other parts of the south 

 coast, have for some years distinguished a smaller race 

 of ringed plovers, which make their appearance in May 

 and again in August, and are said to differ also in note 

 from the ordinary kind, which have eggs and even 

 young, at times, before the arrival of these later mi- 

 grants. It is not, however, I believe generally known 

 that this smaller race is occasionally killed on Breydon ; 

 and I believe for the most part in May, although a 

 recently killed specimen was shown me on the llth of 

 March, 1867. Unfortunately I have had no opportunity 

 of examining these birds in the flesh, and cannot 

 say, therefore, if there is any difference in plumage 

 between males and females, or give sufficiently accu- 

 rate measurements for comparison with those of the 



* Mr. G. D. Rowley, writing from Brighton (" Ibis," 1860, p. 

 101) mentions particularly the existence of two kinds of ringed 

 plover, at Shoreham harbour, the smaller of which he evidently 

 confounded at that time with the little ringed plover of authors 

 (Charadrius minor), from which, however, it is clearly distinct. 

 In the same journal for 1865 (p. 465), Mr. C. A. Wright, in his 

 " Second appendix to a list of birds obtained in Malta and Gozo," 

 states that the ringed plover, procured by him at Malta (where they 

 begin to appear in March), agree " in every particular of size and 

 colour," with the smaller race procured at Brighton. He is not 

 aware if the larger one is ever found in Southern Europe, but the 

 true little ringed plover (C. minor), he includes amongst the 

 regular visitants to Malta and Gozo (" Ibis," 1864, p. 141.) In a 

 foot note, also, to Mr. Wright's paper, as quoted above (p. 465), 

 the editor of the " Ibis," suggests that the smaller race of ringed- 

 plover " probably bears the same relation to jffigialites hiaticula 

 that Tringa schinzi does to T. alpina, and is inclined to believe that 

 this bird is identical with the Charadrius intermedius of Menetries 

 (Cat. Yoy. au Caucase, p. 53), " which he found to be not rare on the 

 river Lenkoranka, near the Caspian." He farther adds that a 

 specimen procured from Natal by Mr. J. H. Gurney agrees "in 

 every essential respect " with those of the small race from Brighton 

 and Shoreham. See also " Ibis," 1865, p. 432. 



