GOLDEN PLOVER. 77 



cry or whistle, once heard, is not likely to be forgotten. The 

 female lays two eggs on the bare ground, among white-coated 

 flints and stones. An idea of their ground-colour may be given 

 by the mention of what the painters call stone-colour, in pale 

 shades, and this is streaked and spotted, or marbled, with dark 

 brown. tfig. I, plate VII. 



162.* PRATINCOLE (Glareola torquata). 

 Collared Pratincole, Austrian Pratincole. A bird of sufficiently 

 rare occurrence in this country, and remarkable as having caused 

 some degree of perplexity and dispute among naturalists as to 

 the position it should occupy in the general system or classifica- 

 tion of the Bird-family. Mr. Yarrell (in whose first edition it 

 appears at the head of the Rail-family) says " The Pratincole 

 has been arranged by some authors with the Swallows, by others 

 near the Rails ; bat I believe, with Mr. Selby, that it ought to be 

 included in the family of the Plovers ; and had I known its 

 Plover-like habits and eggs sooner, I should have arranged it 

 between Cursorius and Charadrius." To this Mr. Hewitson 

 adds " Besides the similarity of their habits, the fact of this 

 species laying four eggs is a further link to connect it with the 

 Charadriidse." It is, however, much too rare besides being 

 known not to breed in Britain to have any claim on our limited 

 space for description of its nest or eggs. 



163. GOLDEN TWYESLtffaradnwpluvialis). 

 Yellow Plover, Green Plover, Whistling Plover. It has some- 

 times been an object to me to obtain specimens of this bird in 

 its breeding-plumage, and it is scarcely possible to imagine a 

 stronger contrast than that presented by the male in his May 

 dress and six or eight months later. All the glossy black of 

 neck and breast has entirely disappeared long before the latter 

 period. I have occasionally seen a single pair or two, very early 

 m the year, separating themselves from the great flock of some 

 scores ; and in the female of one such pair which I shot some few 

 years since (the next shot killing five put of a very large flock at 

 no great distance), 1 found an egg quite ready for extrusion, and 

 which from the depth of its colouring, would probably have been 

 laid in the course of a few hours at most. The hen-bird makes 

 a very slight nest, and lays just four eggs in it, seldom either 

 more or less. They are of a large size for the bird, of a fair 

 stone-colour, well blotched and spotted with very dark or blac kish- 

 brown. After sitting eight or ten days the bird becomes very 

 reluctant to leave her nest, and will suffer herself to be almost 

 trodden on rather. The young ones, awkward-looking mottled 

 yellow and brown puff-balls on stilts, run fast and well soon after 

 they are hatched, and do not speedily acquire the use of those 



