476 THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 



Behring's Strait. In the Eiesengebirge and Styrian Alps it breeds 

 near the snow line, where it meets with conditions of climate 

 similar to those which prevail in Arctic latitudes. 



272. Caspian Plover [CASPISCHER REGENPFEIFER]. 

 CHAKADRIUS CASPIUS, Pallas. 1 



Charadrius caspius. Pallas, Zoogr. Ross.-Asiat., ii. 136. 

 Charadrius asiatiicus. Naumatin, xiii.; Blasius, Nwchtrage, 225. 

 Caspian Plover. Dresser, vii. 479. 



As a collector of the birds of a district so narrowly confined and 

 so far north as Heligoland, I may indeed be considered fortunate 

 to have obtained no less than two individuals of a species the 

 home of which is so far to the south-east as that of the bird 

 under consideration, especially as one of the birds happened to be 

 an old example in beautiful pure summer plumage, and the other 

 a specimen in equally faultless juvenile dress. The former of these 

 examples I obtained on the 19th May 1859, and the latter before 

 that date, viz. : on the 16th of November 1850. Besides this, 

 some ' Kiiker ' i.e. 0. hiaticula with the breast of ferruginous 

 colour, were also seen on the 10th of March 1848, and on the 

 22nd of April 1876. Unfortunately, these individuals were not 

 shot, so that it remains undetermined whether they belonged to 

 the present species or to C. pyrrhothorax or C. mongolicus. 



The Caspian Plover is smaller than C. morinellus, but much 

 longer in the legs and wings. Its plumage is firmer and more com- 

 pact, and is more like that of the Ringed Plover, between which 

 and C. morinellus this species appears to occupy an intermediate 

 position. The colours of its plumage are as beautiful as they are 

 simple. With the exception of the high forehead, all the upper 

 parts are of a light dull greyish-brown colour, similar to that of 

 the smaller species of Plovers, more especially C. cantianus ; the 

 -forehead, a broad eye-streak, the lores, cheeks, chin, throat, and 

 sides of the neck pure white, the ear-coverts, which have a faint 

 brownish tinge, forming the only break. The upper breast from 

 the neck downwards, and the upper third of the breast, are of a 

 beautiful uniform orange brown colour, being divided from the 

 pure white of the lower parts by a narrow blackish band. The 

 flight-feathers are blackish brown; the tail-feathers are of the 

 same colour as the neck, but towards their tips become much 

 darker, and terminate in broad dull whitish edges, which in the 



1 jEgialitis asiatica (Pall. ). 



