354 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Aegialitis meloda (Ord) 

 Piping Plover 



C h a r a d r i u s m c 1 o d u s Ord. Edition of Wilson's OmithologA-. 1824. 7:71 



DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 210, fig. 177 

 Aegialitis meloda A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 2. 1895. ^o- 277 



inelo'da, Lat., melodious 



Description. Upper parts pale whitish ash; primaries dusky with. 

 white middle sections; secondaries and greater coverts mostly white; base 

 of tail and its outennost feathers white, others with blackish terminal portions, 

 slightly tipped with white; a black belt, usually broken on the center of 

 jugulum and narrow on back of neck, being widest on sides; a short black 

 band on the forecrown, not reaching from eye to eye; frontlet, throat, collar 



and under parts pure white; legs and 

 base of bill yellow or orange ; terminal 

 half of bill black ; eyelids orange. This 

 is the whitest of our little plovers. 



Length 6.5-7.5 inches; extent 14;^ 

 wing 4.5-4.75; tarsus .85-.95; middle 

 toe and claw .75; bill .45-48. 



The Piping plover, Pale ring-neck. 



Beach-bird, or Beach -flea inhabits the 



eastern United States, breeding as far 



north as the Gtilf of St Lawrence and 



Manitoba, and wintering from Carolina 



and the gulf coast to the West Indies. 



In New York it is threatened with 



extirpation. Though it was common 



along the south and east coasts of 



Long Island in Giraud's time, it is now practically limited as a breeding 



species to Gardiners island, Ram island and similar localities in eastern 



Suffolk covinty. It undoubtedly bred in former years along Lake Erie and 



Lake Ontario, and Mr Todd found several pairs nesting at Presque Isle, Pa., 



in 1900, but I can find no definite breeding record for western New York. 



The following records from the interior of New York are before me- 



Owasco Lake. Fall 1876. Birds Cen. N. Y. p. 30 

 Lockport, N. Y. Aug. 20, 1885. J. L. Davison 



Pipnuj plover Acsialitis mclorla (Ord). Specimen from 

 Lake Ontario no'v in State Museum. I nat. size 



