THE SEMIPALMATED PLOVER. 419 



Kill-deer Plover, but are some little smaller; varying in 

 dimensions from 1.40 by 1.05 to 1.34 by 1.02 inch. The 

 spots and markings are similar to those of the other, but 

 are less thickly distributed: some specimens have obscure 

 spots of purple and lilac, and the brown spots vary from 

 quite blackish to the color of raw-umber. 



2EGIALITIS SEMIPALMATUS. (Bern.) Cabanis. 

 The Semipalmated Plover; Ring-neck. 



Charadrius semipalmatus, Nuttall. -Man., II. 24. Aud. Orn. Biog., IV. (1838) 

 256; V. 579. 76., Birds Am., V. (1842) 218. 

 ^Egialtes semipalmata, Bonaparte. List (1838). 

 uEgialitis semipalmatus, Cabanis. Cab. Journ. (1856), 425. 

 Tringa hiaticula, Wilson. Am. Orn., VII. (\813) 65. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Small; wings long; toes connected at base, especially the outer to the middle 

 toe ; front, throat, ring around the neck, and entire under parts, white ; a band of 

 deep-black across the breast, extending around the back of the neck below the white 

 ring; band from the base of the bill, under the eye, and wide frontal band above 

 the white band, black ; upper parts light ashy-brown, with a tinge of olive ; quills 

 brownish-black, with their shafts white in a middle portion, and occasionally a lan- 

 ceolate white spot along the shafts of the shorter primaries ; shorter tertiaries edged 

 with white ; lesser coverts tipped with white ; middle feathers of the tail ashy olive- 

 brown, with a wide subterminal band of brownish-black, and narrowly tipped with 

 white ; two outer tail feathers white, others intermediate, like the middle, but widely 

 tipped with white ; bill orange-yellow, tipped with black ; legs yellow. Female simi- 

 lar, but rather lighter-colored. Young without the black band in front, and with 

 the band across the breast ashy-brown; iris, dark-hazel. 



Total length, about seven inches ; wing, four and three-quarters inches ; tail, two 

 and a quarter inches. 



Hob. The whole of temperate North America; common on the Atlantic. 



This pretty and well-known species is abundant in New 

 England in the spring and fall migrations. It arrives from 

 the South by the latter part of April, in small flocks of 

 eight or ten individuals ; some following the course of large 

 rivers, like the Connecticut ; others haunting the shores of 

 large ponds and meadows ; but the greater number follow- 

 ing the seacoast, where they feed, like the others of this 

 genus, on small crustaceans, shell-fish, and the eggs of fish 

 and other marine animals. 



