PLOVERS AND SANDPIPERS. 81 



are largely regulated by the weather, and I have 

 known it desert a district entirely, or become very 

 restless and unsettled, just previous to a storm. 



In spring the sea coasts are deserted, and the 

 Golden Plover retires to its breeding-grounds. 

 These, in our islands, are situated on the upland 

 moors and mountain plateaux. The nest, invariably 

 made upon the ground, is often placed on a hassock 

 of coarse herbage, or on a tuft of cotton grass, and 

 consists merely of a hollow, lined with a few bits 

 of withered grass or dead leaves. The eggs are 

 four in number, buff blotched and spotted with 

 various shades of brown, and more sparingly with 

 gray. They are much richer and yellower in 

 appearance than those of the Lapwing, otherwise 

 closely resemble them. 



GRAY PLOVER. 



This handsome bird, generically separated by 

 many ornithologists from the preceding, on account 

 of its possessing a minute and entirely functionless 

 hind toe, is the Vanellus helveticus of Brisson, and 

 the Charadriiis helveticus of writers who ignore the 

 genus Squatarola, founded by Leach on the above- 

 named trivial and, all things considered, utterly 

 inadequate character. The Gray Plover is the first 

 species we have considered in the present work that 

 does not breed in the British Islands. Many birds 

 of this species only pass our coast on migration in 

 going to, and returning from, their Arctic breeding- 



F 



