PLOVER 



481 



take to the wing. They arc, however, able to find 

 their own food. In the pairing time each pair is 

 solitary, and till the young are feathered and the old 

 have moulted each bird lives solitary ; but after this 

 they assemble in little flocks, and mingle with the 

 stronger birds oF the same order, which resort to the 

 shores in autumn and winter. Climate appears to 

 have no effect on the colours of these birds. They 

 are common on all beachy shores, as far to the north 

 as Greenland ; and, wherever they are found, their 

 colours at the same season are the same. 



THE KENTISH PLOVER (C. Cantianus]. The haunts 

 and the habits of this species, in so far as the latter 

 are known, bear some resemblance to those of the 

 ring-plover, and on this account the two have been 

 confounded. Their sizes, their forms, and their 

 colours are, however, all so different that they are as 

 decidedly distinct species as birds can be. The 

 Kentish plover is nearly an inch shorter than the 

 ring-plover, and the form of its body is much more 

 slender and elegant. The tarsi of the Kentish are 

 longer and stouter, and the wings are proportionally 

 shorter. The colours are also different both in the 

 naked parts and in the plumage. The ring-plover, 

 under all its changes of plumage, whether with age 

 or with season, has the tarsi, the toes, and the 

 basal half of both mandibles yellow : in the Kentish 

 plover these are always quite black. There is no 

 gorget and collar of black on the Kentish plover, but 

 merely a patch on each shoulder, ragged at the mar- 

 gins, and not meeting each other either before or 

 behind. The black under the eye and the white 

 over it are both broken, and the black patch on the 

 forehead is small and irregular, and the top of the 

 head is rust colour. The white on the under part is 

 still more pure, and glossed with a racy lustre on the 

 middle of the belly. The upper part too has a red- 

 dish tinge, and not a brownish one. The colours of 

 this bird are what may be called simple ; but s-till it 

 is one of those instances in which the simplicity of 

 nature outdoes all the elaborateness of art ; for all 

 the art of the chemist cannot prepare a pigment that 

 will come nearly up to the intense white on the under 

 part of this bird, and no gloss of art can imitate the 

 racy bloom upon the bell}'. The ring-plover is a 

 pretty bird certainly, and it is interesting from the 

 times and the places of its occurrence ; but, in point 

 of beauty, it is nothing to the Kentish plover. 



The grounds, the numbers, and the geographical 

 distribution of the two birds are fully as different. 

 The ring-plover is found chiefly upon the sand ; the 

 Kentish among gravel ; the one is abundant and dis- 

 tributed into very cold latitudes ; the Kentish plo- 

 ver inhabits peculiar places of the warmer shores of 

 Europe, and only uhere there is a run of the tide. 

 It is not abundant any where, and in England it is 

 very rare and very local, being met with only on 

 some of the coasts of Kent and Sussex, more readily 

 on the shingly beaches about Sandwich than any 

 where else. It is the white-fronted plover of Meyer, 

 and the shore plover of Bechstein ; but, as is the case 

 with many other birds, the continental naturalists 

 appear to describe it in its winter plumage, in which 

 we believe it has never been seen in England. It 

 may migrate in the winter, though we believe it is 

 not very usual for birds that deposit their eggs nest- 

 less on the low and warm beaches to migrate in the 

 winter, though many, which winter on these beaches, 

 have a northward migration in the summer. The 



NAT. HIST. VOL. III. 



Kentish plover, like the ring, makes no nest, but 

 places its eggs on a smooth dry place among the 

 shingle. They are four in number, of smaller size 

 than those of the ring-plover, paler cream colour in 

 the ground, and marked with small spots and streaks 

 of black. Little is known of the habits of these birds 

 in the nesting time, and indeed the eggs are but sel- 

 dom seen, on account of the rarity of the birds and 

 the similarity of the eggs to many of the pebbles 

 around them. It is probable, however, that the female 

 follows the habit of the genus, in leaving her eggs to 

 the heat of the sun upon clear days, and sitting in 

 the night and during rain. The young run about as 

 soon as they come out of the shell, and immediately 

 find their own food, but some time elapses before 

 they can fly. This bird agrees so perfectly with the 

 ring-plover in the greater part of its habits that ana- 

 logy would lead to the conclusion that it is a resident 

 bird in winter, as well as in summer ; and the reason 

 of its not being observed in winter may be the absence 

 of observers from the stormy places which it inhabits 

 at that inclement season. 



The species which we have enumerated comprise 

 all the plovers, both general and local, that are to be 

 met with in any part of the British islands. They 

 form but a small fraction of the whole genus, of which, 

 as we have said, there are species in every part of 

 the world. The manners of the whole are so much 

 alike, however, that very brief notices of a few of the 

 others will suffice. Africa is a great plovers' country, 

 from the dryness of the surface at one period of the 

 year, and the heavy rains at another. 



CROWNED PLOVER (C. coronatus). This is a South 

 African species, and among the largest birds in the 

 whole genus. It measures a foot in length. The 

 upper plumage of the body is greenish-brown ; the 

 top of the head black, surrounded by a circle o. 

 white ; the chin is black, and so are the quills ; and 

 the greater coverts of the wings are white, and the 

 tail-leal hers whitish, crossed by bars of black; the 

 front of the neck is grey, and the breast russet, waved 

 with greenish and dotted with black ; the bill and 

 feet are reddish. 



This species belongs to a sort of subgenus, the 

 chief part African, which differ considerably from the 

 characteristic plovers, whether we take the type of 

 the common plover as shifting its abode with the 

 seasons, or that of the ring-plover as remaining on 

 the same ground all the year round. The members 

 of this group, instead of having the scales on the 

 tarsi more or less reticulated, as they are in the typi- 

 cal plovers, have them escutcheoned in a manner ap- 

 proaching those on the gallinaceous birds. Their 

 colours are also much more broken than those of the 

 typical plovers. They are found through the whole 

 length of Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope to 

 Egypt. This difference in the character of the feet, 

 and also in the colour, indicates a difference of habit, 

 a less aquatic one than that of the true plovers, though 

 they never go into the water beyond the naked part 

 of the legs ; but the precise nature of this difference 

 is not known, as the habits of these birds have not 

 been studied with any thing like attention. We 

 shall just name one or two of the others which have 

 these characters. 



BLACK-HEADED PLOVER (C. mclanocephalus). 



This species occurs in Egypt and also in the central 



parts of Africa. It measures eight inches in length. 



The upper part is blackish, and so is the eye-streak, 



H H 



