GREAT PLOVER. 439 



fallow lands, heaths, and warrens, and when trying to get 

 a shot at them, I may remark, that from the bare and 

 exposing nature of the ground, I have always found them 

 very difficult of approach. The eggs are pale clay brown, 

 blotched, spotted, and streaked with ash-blue and dark 

 brown ; two inches two lines in length, by one inch seven 

 lines in breadth ; and so closely do these eggs, and also the 

 chicks in their downy covering, assimilate in colour with 

 the soil and the stones around them, that they are both 

 very difficult to find. 



The large and prominent eye in this species indicates a 

 bird that moves and feeds by twilight or later. Their food 

 is worms, slugs, and insects ; they are believed also to kill 

 and devour small mammalia and small reptiles, for which 

 their stout frame and large beak seem sufficiently powerful. 

 Mr. Selby and the Rev. L. Jenyns found the remains 

 of large coleopterous insects, of the genus Carabus, in the 

 stomach of the Great Plover, and these beetles, it will 

 be recollected, do not begin to move about till the close of 

 day. 



The Great Plover annually visits Germany, and is abun- 

 dant in France, Spain, Provence, Sardinia, Italy, Sicily, 

 and, southward, to Africa, Madeira, and even to southern 

 Africa ; Dr. Andrew Smith having obtained specimens 

 during the progress of the exploring expedition . from the 

 Cape northwards. 



Eastward it is found in Corfu, Turkey, and the Grecian 

 Archipelago. Mr. Strickland, when at Smyrna, was told 

 that it occurs in Asia Minor, of which there is little doubt, 

 the Zoological Society having received specimens from 

 Trebizond, and the Russian naturalist, M. Hohenacker, 

 having also found it on the plains between the Black and 

 the Caspian Seas. Mr. Blyth has obtained it in India. 



