402 The Common Ringed Plover of the British Isles. 



by an extraordinary uniformity and similarity in all the 

 species of tliis group which I have been able to examine'^. 

 Tt is^ in fact, quite diagnostic, and in no genus of the true 

 and restricted family Charadriida is it so uniform or so 

 remarkable. 



It is true that very much the same type of colour-pattern 

 is exhibited in the downy chicks of the genus Ochthodromus, 

 a shore-dwelling group which has become differentiated 

 from the Ringed-Plover group ; but this colour-pattern of 

 the young Ochthodromine chicks can, nevertheless, be 

 easily distinguished and has a distinct character of its own. 



Shortly put, the most obvious point about the coloration 

 of the downy young of the genus y^gialitis is the con- 

 spicuous white nuchal collar; and the next most obvious 

 point is the very finely discrete and uniform "pepper and 

 salt ^' coloration of the upper parts, the ground-colour 

 of which only differs very slightly in the various species. 

 On the top of the head this fine mottling is seen to be 

 contained in a very distinctly defined patch bordered with 

 white. Here, then, it is obvious that we have an ancestral 

 type of plumage — a simple colour- pat tern — which, in view 

 of the very cosmopolitan distribution of the whole genus 

 through which it uniformly runs, must be of great age, and 

 from the point of view of any scientific system of classi- 

 fication, of great importance. Although purely a matter of 

 coloration, this type of colour-pattern of the plumage is a 

 phylogenetic character which cannot be ignored. It is 

 absolutely characteristic of the genus. In no other group, 

 comprised in the true Charadriida, do we find such a fixed 

 and constant type of coloration, characteristic of their downy 

 young ; and this, I believe, for the simple reason that the 

 Ringed-Plover group represents in the true CharadriidcB the 

 ancestral shore-living race, from which all the other true 

 Plover groups — most of which have now forsaken the shore, 

 in whole or part, for high moorlands, inland plateaux, or 

 steppes — were derived. 



* Photographs of these (some five or six) to show their remarkable 

 luniformitj, would, I think, make a very instructive plate. — P. R. L. 



