PLOVERS AND SANDPIPERS. 67 



ately Schlegel's opinions have been fully confirmed 

 by Herr Gatke ; and the reader interested in the 

 subject is referred to that great naturalist's remarks 

 thereon in his book on the birds of Heligoland.* 

 This seasonal change of colour may be produced 

 both by a moult and by actual transition, without 

 cast of feather, even in the same bird : the restora- 

 tion of ragged feathers and development of colour 

 upon them may also be progressing at the same 

 time. Thus the black markings on the head and 

 neck of the Golden Plover are the result of colour 

 alteration, but the black on the breast is attained by 

 moult. The colour changes in the Sanderling, the 

 Knot, the Dunlin, the Redshank, and numerous 

 other allied birds, are perfectly astonishing : in the 

 Redshank especially so, the profusely barred upper 

 plumage being developed without change of feather, 

 and the feathers reacquiring a pristine freshness 

 and perfectness which seem almost incredible with- 

 out a complete moult! 



Comparatively speaking, the haunts frequented 

 by Limicoline birds during summer, or the season 

 of reproduction, are not, in the strict sense of the 

 term, littoral ones. But few species breed on the 

 actual coast in our islands they are represented by 

 such birds as the Oyster-catcher and the Ringed 

 Plover ; the vast majority rear their young in 

 inland localities, on moors and downs, by the side 

 of rivers, streams, and lakes, in swamps, and so on. 



* Heligoland as an Ornithological Observatory, p. 151, et seq. 



