CHARADIUID.K - Til K l'l,i iVEM^ — SQUATARULA. 137 



the Arctic coast. July L 'I'lic uest contained four eggs, and was composed oi' a little 

 withered grass, placed in a depression on the side or face of a very gentle eminence. 

 Both parents were seen, and the male shot. They were at first mistaken for the 

 Golden Plover ; bat their note and general appearance soon undeceived him. This 

 was the first of the species he had ever seen during his sojourn in the country. 

 While it may exist on the Arctic coast and in the Barren Grounds, he is quite 

 confident that he ncviT met witli it before. The eggs in this instance contained 

 partially developed embryos. On the following day, July 5, 1864, another nest, 

 containing four eggs also, in the same stage of development, was secured. 



A third nest, with four eggs, was discovered the following night, and a snare was 

 set to secure the parent. The female was taken, but before it was secured, a Snowy 

 Owl devoured the bird and destroyed the eggs. 



In regard to the breeding of this Plover, we learn from JMiddendorff that he 

 observed none of this species on the Boganida earlier than the 2yth of May. By the 

 26th of June the females were sitting there on their nests, which had been formed 

 by collecting together dried leaves and grasses, and in which were four eggs, which 

 he compares in shape with the eggs of the Lapwing and the Dotterel (Charadrius 

 7tiorinellus). He gives their average length at 2.10 inches, and their average largest 

 diameter 1.40 inches. They differed very considerably in size, the largest being 2.18 

 inches in length, and the smallest only 1.87 inches. Xor does the color afford any 

 distinctive mark. The ground-color is sometimes yellowish gray and sometimes 

 brownish yellow, the dark-brown spots being like those of the Ch. jj/iiriatis. Midden- 

 dorff also found this bird breeding on the Byrranga Mountains, in latitude 74°. 



Mr. Dresser describes one of the eggs obtained by Middendorff as measuring 2.07 

 by 1.40 inches, with a ground-color of a dull clay-brown, and bearing markings 

 distributed over the surface, but collecting together at the larger end, l)larkisli brown 

 in color, and irregular in sliajie. There were also a few nndc-rlying purplish shell- 

 markings. 



Eggs of this species collected by Mr. IMacFarlane in an island in Franklin's Bay, 

 on the Arctic coast, in July, 1864, and in 1865, and numbered 11193, 11196, and 

 11199, S. I., exhibit certain general resemblances to the egg of the more common 

 Golden Plover {Ch. vircjinlnis). They have, however, certain constant differences 

 which do not readily admit of exact description. These three sets, two of four and 

 one of three eggs, differ from the average egg of the vmjinlais in the more nearly 

 equal distribution of the spots over the whole egg. In two of these sets the ground 

 color is of a light greenish drab ; in the other the ground is a light rufous drab, 

 without any mixture of green. The spots are of a dark sliade of umber or bistre, 

 and the darkness of the shade is (piite uniform, and never intensified, as in the eggs 

 of the virrjinlcus. They are strongly pyriform in shape, and vary in length from 

 1.90 inches to 2.30, and in breadth from 1.40 to 1.47 inches. They are longer and 

 broader than the virglnicus, and their Vireadth is also proportionally greater. 



Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Seebiihm, in the summer of 187.5. found the Gray Plover 

 breeding on the tundras of the Petchora River, in Northern Russia in Europe, where 

 they procured a rich series of eggs described as intermediate in color between those 

 of the Golden Plover and the Lapwing, and subject to variations, some being much 

 browner, and others more olive, but none so green as the eggs of the Lapwing, 

 nor so orange as those of the Plover. The blotching is in every respect the same, 

 the underlying spots equally indistinct, and the surface spots large, especially at the 

 greater end, but occasionally small and scattered. In size they vary from 1.90 by 

 1.35 to 2.20 by 1.40 inches. 



VOL. I. — 18 



