154 Mr. H. Seebohm on the Ornithology of Siberia. 



black belly ; and I decided to take my first good chance of a 

 shot at him, and then to devote another half hour to a search 

 for the nest. He proved to be, as I suspected, the Asiatic 

 Golden Plover, with grey axillaries. My search for the nest 

 was a very short one. I found it in less than five minutes, 

 within a dozen yards of my position. It was a mere hollow 

 in the ground upon a piece of turfy land, overgrown with 

 moss and lichen ; and it was lined with broken stalks of rein- 

 deer moss. The eggs, four in number, were a size smaller 

 than those of the Golden Plover, averaging If x 1^. (Eggs 

 of the Golden Plover from the same locality average 2^ x 

 1J.) These eggs were taken on the 13th of July, and were 

 very much incubated. 



Among the eggs which had been collected for me at Gol- 

 checka was a second sitting of Asiatic Golden Plover's. Here 

 the bird was extraordinarily common. I tried to watch 

 several birds onto the nest, but in every case without success. 

 They behaved exactly as if they had young. I succeeded in 

 catching one young bird in down, and reluctantly came to 

 the conclusion that I was too late (on the 20th of July) for 

 eggs. The young in down is quite as yellow as that of the 

 Golden Plover. 



In ' The Ibis' for 1863, p. 404, Swinhoe represents this bird 

 as breeding plentifully on Formosa. The eggs are described 

 as measuring If g x 1^ . These eggs are still in the Swinhoe 

 collection, and average l^J x 1^. They exactly resemble my 

 eggs in colour, but are much smaller and rounder at the small 

 end. Two other eggs in the same collection, of exactly the 

 same colour and shape, and from the same locality, are marked 

 jEgialitis geoffroii. These two eggs are a shade smaller, 

 measuring 1J^ x 1 ; but I am induced to think that Swinhoe 

 has been led astray by his collectors, and that all these Formosa 

 eggs belong to M. geoffroii. Swinhoe further states that C. 

 fulvus is common on Formosa " all the year round/' Unfor- 

 tunately the skins of this bird from Formosa in the Swinhoe 

 collection are not dated. I have no doubt that great numbers of 

 this bird pass through Formosa in breeding-plumage in spring, 

 and again in winter plumage in autumn. Some may very 



