229 



Genus HOPLOPTERUS, Bonap., 1831. 



Head crested ; no lappet. Wing armed with a long, curved, 

 black spur on the bend. Second quill longest. Tarsus long and 

 slender, reticulated throughout ; no hind toe. 



This genus, easily distinguished amongst Indian Plovers by its 

 wing-spur, comprises two African and one Indian species. One 

 of the African forms ranges to Southern Europe and Syria. 



1435. Hoploptems ventralis. The Indian Spur-winged Plover. 



Charadrius ventralis, Wagl. Syst. Av., Charadrius, no. 11 (1827). 

 Hoplopterus ventralis, Blyth, Cat. p. 260 ; Irbij, Ibis, 1861, p. 237 ; 



Jerdon, B. I. iii, p. 650 ; Godw.-Aust. J, A. S. B. xxxix, pt. 2, 



p. 273; flume, N. fy E. p. 578; Hwm $ Gates, S. F. in, p. 181 ; 



Myth fy Wald. Birds Burm. p. 153; Hume $ Dav. & jF. vi, 



p. '457; Ball, S. F. vii, p. 227; Cripps, ibid. p. 300; Anders. 



Yunnan Exped., Aves, p, 675 ; Hume, Cat, no. 857; Scully, S. F. 



viii, p. 352 ; Bingham, S. F. ix, p. 196 ; Reid, S. F. x,* p. 66 ; 



Gates, B. B. ii, p. 373 ; id. in Hume's N. $ E. 2nd ed. iii, p. 347 ; 



Barnes, Birds Bom. p. 335; Hume Cripps, S. F. xi, p. 316 ; 



tihar-pe, Cat. B. M. xxiv, p. 159. 

 Hoplopterus malabaricus, apud Blyth, Ibis, 1867, p. 165; Blanf. 



J. A. S. B. xl, pt. 2, p. 276 ; nee Charadrius malabaricus, Bodd. 

 The Spur-winyed Lapwing, Jerdon. 



Coloration. Crown and long occipital crest, lores, sides of face 

 in front of the eyes, chin, and a band extending far down the 

 throat black, the black everywhere surrounded by a white border, 



Fig. 52. Wing-spur of H. ventralis. \. 



passing into greyish brown on the ear-coverts and sides of the 

 neck and into light brown on the breast; back, rump, scapulars, 

 tertiaries, and inner wing-coverts light brown ; outer smaller coverts 

 black, separated from the black primary-coverts and black quills 

 by a broad white bar formed of the outer median and the greater 

 coverts, with the bases of all the quills, the white increasing on the 

 secondaries and including the whole or nearly the whole of the two 

 inner secondaries ; upper tail-coverts and nearly two-thirds of the 

 tail from the base white, terminal third of tail black, narrow white 

 tips to outer rectrices ; underparts from breast white, except a 

 broad black patch on the abdomen. 



Bill black ; irides deep brown ; legs reddish black (Jerdon). 



