JEGIA.LITIS. 243 



outer rect rices ; lower parts from neck, including wing-lining, 

 pure white. 



Young birds want the black marks on the head and nape. 

 The black is replaced by brown and the white by buff. 



Bill black, yellowish at base ; irides deep brown ; orbits yellow ; 

 legs yellow (Jerdon). Legs dusky greenish brown in winter, 

 yellow in summer (Gates). 



Length 6-5 ; tail 2'35 ; wing 4*5 ; tarsus 1 ; bill from gape '6. 



Many Indian ornithologists are of opinion that there are two 

 species of Ringed Plover throughout India, the smaller (dE. minuta 

 v. jerdoni) distinguished by smaller size (wing 4, tarsus -8), by 

 having more yellow at the base of the bill, and a more pro- 

 minent and broader naked yellow ring round the eye. The 

 colours of the legs, too, are said to differ. The smaller form is 

 said to breed in India, while the larger bird is a cold weather 

 visitor. I have never been able to distinguish the two forms in 

 India, and I find Dr. Sharpe unites them. There is unquestionably 

 much variation ; and I think it probable that many of the birds 

 occurring in India in the cold season are migrants, and that, as 

 with so many birds, the southern residents run smaller than the 

 birds that breed farther north. 



Distribution. All Europe and Asia, with North Africa. 

 Generally distributed throughout the Indian Empire. 



Habits, fyc. The Little Ringed Plover is most common in the 

 beds of streams and rivers, where it keeps in small scattered 

 flocks, each bird running about independently in search of insects, 

 but all collecting to fly away when alarmed. Occasionally these 

 little Plovers are seen in sandy plains or fields. They have a 

 plaintive monosyllabic whistle. Many of those found in India are 

 probably migrants and breed in the north, but numbers breed in 

 India, from December to May in the Deccan, and probably else- 

 where, and lay four eggs of the usual type, thinly speckled, and 

 measuring 1*14 by *84. 



1448. JEgialitis hiaticula. The Ringed Plover. 



Charadrius hiaticula, Linn. Syst. Nat. i, p. 253 (1766) ; Seebohm, 



Charadr. p. 125. 

 JEgialitis hiaticula, Hume, S. F. viii, p. 197 ; Scully, Ibis. 1881, 



p. 587. 

 ^Egialitis hiaticola, Sharpe, Cat. B. M. xxiv, p. 256. 



Both young and adults of this Plover closely resemble &. clubia, 

 but they are larger, the shafts of all the primaries have the basal 

 half brown and the distal half white except near the tip; there 

 is a white streak outside the shaft in the middle of the quill in 

 all the inner primaries, the greater coverts are tipped white, and 

 there is much white on the inner secondaries and on tho outer 

 rec trices. 



Bill orange-yellow, the tip black ; irides brown ; feet orange. 



Length 7*5 ; tail 2-3 ; wing 5-2 ; tarsus 1 ; bill from gape -6. 



Distribution. Throughout Europe and Western and Central 



