122 BIRDS OF TIEIIRA DEL FUEGO 



bird of King's in the British Museum; and a female from 

 Tova Harbour, Patagonia, in the Rothschild Museum at Tring. 



Previous descriptions and plates do not do this Plover justice ; 

 there are discrepancies in colour, and an important character 

 in the plumage has been overlooked. 



The British Museum specimen, sex unrecorded, measures : — 

 Length, 7'5 ; culmen, 0'6 ; wing, 5'35; tarsus, 0*7; tail, 2'3o 

 inches. 



My two Tierra del Fuego examples measure : — 

 (?, Length, 8.5 ; culmen, 0*9 ; wing, 5'4 ; tarsus, O'S ; tail, 



2 '55 inches. 

 ?, Length, 8*3 ; culmen, 0*85; wing, 5'25 ; tarsus, 0-75 ; 

 tail, 2'5 inches. 

 In the colouring of the sexes there is no apparent difference. 

 Above, the colour is light grey ; the darkest feathers are the 

 primaries, the tail, and the lores, which are greyish black ; the 

 throat is pure white, rather than " greyish white." In the tail, 

 the five lateral under coverts curl up over the sides, and envelop 

 these in a manner not found in any other Plover. 



"II va par bandes tres-nombreuses " is all that Hombron and 

 Jacquinot record of its life history. 



This Plover is not a common bird. In six months I saw five 

 pairs, at various times, in various places. Once I remarked a pair 

 high up on the shingle in San Sebastian Bay, in close proximity 

 to a fresh-water lagoon inland. In all other cases I found these 

 birds frequenting inland lagoons, with bare shores, where the 

 water is pink with the minute Crustacea on which they feed. At 

 Black-necked Swan Lagoon, when chasing young Geese on 

 horseback in February, I came across a pair with one youug 

 bird, which last proved so active that it escaped me and con- 

 cealed itself in the rocks. So exactly do they assimilate the 

 grey-coloured earth and pink water of their feeding grounds, 

 that it is most difficult to distinguish them, even at very close 

 range, when they are at rest: it is then their shadow, rather 

 than their actual form, which reveals their presence in the clear, 



