KILDEER PLOVEK. 159 



of summer they generally descend to the seashore, in small 

 flocks, seldom more than ten or twelve being seen together. 

 They are then more serene and silent, as well as difficult to be 

 approached. 



The Kildeer is ten inches long, and twenty inches in extent; 

 the bill is black; frontlet, chin, and ring round the neck, white; 

 fore part of the crown, and auriculars from the bill backwards, 

 blackish olive; eyelids bright scarlet; eye very large, and of a 

 full black; from the centre of the eye backwards a stripe of 

 white; round the lower part of the neck is a broad band of black; 

 below that a band of white, succeeded by another rounding band 

 or crescent of black; rest of the lower parts pure white; crown 

 and hind-head light olive brown; back, scapulars, and wing- 

 coverts, olive brown, skirted with brownish yellow; primary 

 quills black; streaked across the middle with white; bastard 

 wing tipt with white; greater coverts broadly tipt with white; 

 rump and tail-coverts orange; tail tapering, dull orange, crossed 

 near the end with a broad bar of black, and tipt with orange, 

 the two middle feathers near an inch longer than the adjoining 

 ones; legs and feet a pale light clay colour. The tertials, as usu- 

 al in this tribe, are very long, reaching nearly to the tips of the 

 primaries; exterior toe joined by a membrane to the middle one, 

 as far as the first joint. 



