THE KENTISH PLOVER. 73 



in the present case this is so, for the bird is of wide distribution, and much 

 commoner in many other places than in Kent. 



A summer visitor to South and South-east England, Southern Sweden, 

 Norway (once recorded only), Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and France. In Spain, 

 Portugal, and on all the Mediterranean shores, it is resident, breeding on sea-shores 

 and salt-water lakes inland ; extending in winter to the extreme south of Africa. 

 It frequents the Black, Caspian, and Aral. Seas in summer, and all salt-water lakes 

 in Central Asia, as far east as Mongolia, going southwards to Japan, China, India, 

 and Indo-Malaya (e.g., Borneo, Everett) in winter. Two Oriental species or races 

 (sEg. dealbatus, Swinhoe, with pale legs and feet ; and s. peronii, Mliller, also 

 with pale legs and feet and a black nuchal collar) have caused some confusion in 

 determining exactly the winter quarters of our bird in the east. Very rare in 

 Ireland. 



Colour of adult male : bill black ; iris umber ; a white frontal band extending 

 above and behind the eye ; fore part of crown, lores, and ear-coverts black ; 

 rest of crown and nape tawny reddish-brown ; a narrow white collar behind ; 

 back and upper parts generally hair-brown ; wing quills of the same colour, with 

 darker edges, their shafts white, with dusky bases and ends ; secondaries with 

 white tips, which, with the white-tipped greater coverts, form a double white bar 

 across the open wing ; central tail feathers almost black, external ones white, the 

 intermediate ones passing gradually from the one colour to the other ; under parts 

 white ; an incomplete pectoral band of black, interrupted in the centre in front and 

 behind; feet and legs black. Size variable: length 6J-7f inches, wing 4^-4^. 



The female, in summer, has no black on the forehead, or only a trace of it, 

 and the colours generally are less bright. In winter the chestnut crown is mixed 

 with dusky brown, and the feathers of the upper parts more or less tipped with 

 dirty white. 



Young birds of the year resemble the female, but are paler and dingier still, 

 and more mottled on the upper parts. 



Birds in down (Lydd, 4, 6, 87, H. E. Rawson) closely resemble the corres- 

 ponding stage of /Eg. hiaticula, but are rather more sandy above ; the interruption 

 in the pectoral band is visible even at this early stage, and will separate the two. 



The above descriptions from a series in my collection from Morocco, Foochow 

 and Yokohama. 



As has been already intimated, this is purely a salt-water bird, breeding on 

 sea-coasts and inland salt-lakes, very rarely indeed found upon fresh water. It 

 used to breed in some numbers on the coasts of the S. and S.E. of England, but 

 ruthless shore-gunners and wholesale egg-collectors, with an unfortunate mania 



