THE GOLDEN PLOVER. 105 



legs are moderately long ; the feet have the inner toes free, 

 and a small membrane uniting the others at the base. The 

 tail rounded or bluntly wedge-shaped in some, and more 

 square in others. The wings of a medium length, and armed 

 with a spine or tubercle. 



They prefer bare places, along which they run with much 

 celerity ; and they repose upon the ground, and never perch 

 or roost for the night in trees. They cannot be considered 

 as waders, though they pick up their food mostly in humid 

 places and in humid states of the weather, or where the 

 evaporative power of the atmosphere is weak, and the worms 

 and molluscous animals make their appearance on the sur- 

 face. They have received the name of plovers, " pluviers" 

 "pluviales," from the fact of their being most active when 

 rain is impending, and the supposition (of old) that they were 

 instrumental in bringing rain, whereas it is the rain that is 

 the cause of their activity ; or rather, the cause is that state 

 of the atmosphere which usually brings rain. 



The British species are the golden plover, the dotterel, the 

 ring-dotterel, and the Kentish plover. The dotterel is a very 

 peculiar summer visitant, the others are resident ; but the 

 Kentish plover is local and rare. 



THE GOLDEN PLOVER (Charadrius pluvialis). 



In the popular vocabulary, and even in that of authors, 

 the plover is a bird of many names. It has been called 

 green, and also yellow, from its colours, and whistling, from 

 its voice ; all of which names are applicable at some stage or 

 other, and yet it remains all the while the same bird. 



The length of the plover is between ten and eleven inches, 

 the extent of its wings more than a foot and a half, and its 

 weight about half a pound. 



If the native region of birds be considered, as it certainly 

 should be, that in which they are produced, the golden plover 



