482 CHARADRIIDJl. 



fell, that in the lanes were drifts six and seven feet in 

 depth." 



From the northern parts of the European continent they 

 also return after the breeding-season, inhabiting for a time 

 France, Provence, Sardinia, Italy, Sicily, and the shores 

 of Africa. The Zoological Society have received speci- 

 mens from Trebizond ; and the Russian naturalists found 

 them on the plains between the Black and the Caspian 

 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 

 Zoological 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 dis- 

 tinct from our bird, but identical with that of the American 

 continents, 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 European 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-coverts, greyish black, the edges of all the feathers 

 varied with triangular-shaped spots of gamboge yellow ; 

 wing-primaries almost black ; tail-feathers obliquely barred 



* M. Temminck, in the fourth part of his Manual, says, "Les sujets tues 

 dans les regions intertropicales de 1'Ancien-monde sont toujours reve'tus du 

 plumage d'hiver ; il ne nous est pas parvenu d'individus en livre"e parfaite 

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

 ces dimensions que celle de nos contre"es." 



