GOLDEN PLOVER. 453 



France, Provence, Sardinia, Italy, Sicily, and the shores 

 of Africa. The Zoological Society have received speci- 

 mens from Trebizond ; and the Russian naturalists found 

 them on the plains between the Black and the Caspian 

 Seas. 



I have not been able to trace our Golden Plover farther 

 to the eastward than this. After a close examination of 

 various examples in the collections of the Linnean and Zoo- 

 logical Societies from India, Java, New Holland, and the 

 Society Isles, I believe, with Sir William Jardine and Mr. 

 Selby, that the Asiatic Golden Plover is a species distinct 

 from our bird, but identical with that of the American 

 continents, in which the bird, though smaller, has a longer 

 beak and longer legs, with a greater extent of naked space 

 above the joint, the yellow spots on the feathers of the 

 lower part of the back more oval in shape than triangular, 

 and the axillary plume is always ash brown, while that of 

 our European bird is as invariably elongated and pure 

 white.* 



The adult bird in its summer plumage has the beak 

 black ; the irides very dark brown, almost black ; on the 

 forehead a band of white ; top of the head, the nape of 

 the neck, the back, wing-coverts, tertials, rump, and upper 

 tail-coverts, greyish black, the edges of all the feathers 

 varied with triangular-shaped spots of gamboge yellow ; 

 wing-primaries almost black ; tail-feathers obliquely barred 

 with shades of greyish white and brownish black ; the lore, 

 chin, sides of the neck, throat, breast, and all the under 

 surface of the body as far as the vent, jet black, bounded 



* M. Temminck, in the Fourth Part of his Manual, says, " Les sujets tue"s 

 dans les regions intertropicales de TAncien-monde sont toujours revetus du 

 plumage d'hiver ; il ne nous est pas parvenu d'individus en livree paifaite des 

 noces. La race de ces climats est constamment plus petite dans toutes ces di- 

 mensions que celle de nos contres." 



