LITTLE HINGED PLOVER. 263 



The late Mr. E. H. Eodd obtained a specimen shot on 

 the 23rd October, 1863, at Trescoe, in the Scilly Islands, by 

 his nephew, Mr. F. K. Rodd, who wrote as follows : " It 

 rose, and its note was a single sharp whistle, not like that 

 of the Common Ringed Plover, and shorter in duration. 

 Its flight was remarkably Stint-like, which it also resembled 

 in its tameness." On the 30th August, 1864, Mr. J. E. 

 Harting shot an immature male example at Kingsbury 

 Reservoir, in Middlesex, and took it in the flesh to Mr. 

 Gould, together with an adult female of the Common Ringed 

 Plover shot at the same time and place. Accurate measure- 

 ments and weights of each were taken, and their sternums 

 were subsequently compared, the results being given in 

 detail by Mr. Harting in the ' Birds of Middlesex ' (p. 152). 

 He was afterwards informed by Mr. R. H. Mitford, of 

 Hampstead, that he also shot an immature Little Ringed 

 Plover on the 20th August of the same year, at the same 

 piece of water, but that owing to an unfortunate mistake, it 

 was not preserved. Mr. W. Borrer, of Cowfold ; Sussex, 

 has also an undoubted example shot near the mouth of 

 Chichester Harbour in May, some years ago.* 



Besides these genuine examples, a number of ' Little 

 Ringed Plovers ' have been from time to time recorded in 

 the pages of * The Zoologist ' and elsewhere, without any 

 evidence being adduced to show that they were not speci- 

 mens of the small race of the Common Ringed Plover, and 

 such in fact some of them are now candidly admitted to be 

 by their owners. The real Little Ringed Plover may, 

 however, be distinguished from M. hiaticula, by its smaller 

 size and slenderer form, being one-fourth lighter in weight ; 

 but especially by the colour of the shafts of the primaries, 

 which are all dusky, except the outer one, which alone 

 is white throughout. In the larger species there are flecks 

 of white crossing the whole of the primaries, and forming 



* Mr. Knox, in the 3rd Edition of his 'Ornithological Rambles in Sussex,' 

 p. 224 (1855), states, without further details, that three adult and two 

 immature examples of the Little Ringed Plover, were killed near Shoreham, 

 in September, 1853. 



