GOLDEN PLOVER. 161 



coast, from Georgia to Maine, yet they are no where numerous; 

 and I have never met with them in the interior. Our mountains 

 being generally covered with forest, and no species of heath 

 having, as yet, been discovered within the boundaries of the 

 United States, these birds are probably induced to seek the 

 more remote arctic regions of the continent to breed and rear 

 their young in, where the country is more open, and unincum- 

 bered with woods. 



The Golden Plover is ten inches and a half long, and twenty- 

 one inches in extent; bill short, of a dusky slate colour; eye very 

 large, blue black; nostrils placed in a deep furrow, and half 

 covered with a prominent membrane; whole upper parts black, 

 thickly marked with roundish spots of various tints of golden 

 yellow; wing-coverts, and hind part of the neck, pale brown, 

 the latter streaked with yellowish; front, broad line over the 

 eye, chin, and sides of the same, yellowish white, streaked with 

 small pointed spots of brown olive; breast gray, with olive and 

 white; sides under the wings marked thinly with transverse 

 bars of pale olive; belly and vent white; wing quills black, the 

 middle of the shafts marked with white; greater coverts black, 

 tipt with white; tail rounded, black, barred with triangular spots 

 of golden yellow; legs dark dusky slate; feet three-toed, with 

 generally the slight rudiments of a heel, the outer toe connected 

 as far as the first joint with the middle one. The male and fe- 

 male differ very little in colour. 



VOL. in. 



