352 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



mounted and discovered the eggs. The following day I visited the locality 

 to photograph the nest, but although I had received careful directions no 

 bird or eggs could be found. The next day I returned with more explicit 

 directions and walked directly to the eggs, but although they were quite 

 wami no bird was seen. The few nests which I have found were discovered 

 hv coming suddenly over a rise of ground and starting the old bird before 

 she had had time to steal away. The eggs are four in number, pyriform in 

 shape, of a dull creamy biiflf, thickly speckled and blotched with black and 

 blackish brown, the dimensions averaging 1.5 x 1.05 inches . 



Aegialitis semipalmata (Bonaparte) 

 Semipalmated Plover 



Plate 30 



Charadrius semipalmatus Bonaparte. Nat. Sci. Jour. Phila. 1825. 5:98 



DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 208, fig. 179 

 Aegialitis semipalmata A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 2. 1895. No. 274 



aegialVtis, Gr. atyuiAms, long-shoreman, worker by the beach; semi- 

 palmd'ta, Lat., partly webbed 



Description. Bill short; outer and middle toes webbed to the second joint; 

 tail shorter than the Killdeer's, less rounded; upper parts, including center of 

 tail coverts and tail feathers brownish gray; outermost tail feathers white; 

 other tail feathers with subterminal zone of blackish; a black ring around 

 the base of the neck; throat white extending in a collar around the neck in 

 front of the black ring; a white frontlet surrounded by the black band 

 extending over the forecrown from eye to eye, and a black stripe extending 

 over the base of the bill and underneath the eyes; under parts white; white 

 wing stripe less pronounced than the Killdeer's ; bill black at tip, orange at 

 base; eyelids bright orange; legs pale flesh color. Winter and young: 

 Have the black mostly replaced by brownish gray, the latter with buffy 

 white edgings above. 



Length 6.5-7.8 inches; extent 15-16; wing 4.7-5; tail 2.25; tarsus 

 .9-95; middle toe and claw .9; bill .5. 



Range and migration. This species breeds from Labrador to the 

 arctic coasts of America and winters from the West Indies and Gulf States 

 to South America. In New York it is a common transient visitant, arriving 



